Book Review: Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, Terrance Hayes
Poetry: Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, Terrance Hayes
I won’t pretend this is an easy read. Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin is not gentle, nature poetry. It is raw and caustic, written to shine a spotlight on violence and race and masculinity. A collection of 70 sonnets, all written in the months following the presidential election of 2016, they do not focus on the politics of the day. Instead they look at the culture, a culture that traps men, especially black men, in roles that may be harmful to them and to others.
Traditionally, a sonnet is a fourteen-line poem that follows a strict rhythm and rhyme pattern. Modern sonnets have kept the fourteen-line format but no longer demand a specific internal structure. Sonnets originally were meant to express “courtly love.” I think it’s quite safe to say that limitation is also a thing of the past.
Hayes’s poems are full of energy and emotion. There is sadness, anger, even rage in several of the poems. In a country where being a black male is far too often a death sentence, where politicians can win votes by repackaging old racism into new soundbites, there is a lot to be angry about.
Every sonnet in this collection carries the same title as the collection itself. Although individual poems are uneven, the scope of the whole is powerful and chilling. I will never be a black male in America and it’s the height of arrogance to pretend that I “understand” what others are experiencing. Terrance Hayes gives us readers an opportunity to catch glimpses of America through his eyes, to witness how we’ve fallen short of our own declarations, to share for one brief moment a taste of the bitterness that chokes so many of our fellow citizens. It may be difficult. It’s also incredibly valuable.
Book Review: Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, Terrance Hayes