Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. She thought he meant / I never want to see you again.” Which kind of illustrates the possibilities of a poem for each reader. The Rumpus is a place where people come to be themselves through their writing, to tell their stories or speak their minds in the most artful and authentic way they know how. Brian S: I know the sonnet is a bit of a departure for you stylistically speaking, and that this is a nod to Wanda Coleman. Brian S: Side note: I want to talk about so many of the individual poems in this book but I have no idea how to identify them outside of page number or first line. Photograph of Terrance Hayes © Becky Thurner Braddock. We sliced the watermelon into smiles. Can you talk some about the power you found in the form and how it drove this book? I shaped them into lectures for Wave’s Bagely-Wright lecture series. Ode to Big Trend. The one thing that seems to always be there is the number of lines. I tried it a few times. Brian S: And then the poem ends with an issue of translation and how impossible it is at times. Brian S: I imagine you’re a hell of a Scrabble player. Anxious keeps me alert. sonnets for my past and future assassin. And because I love a good question. I wrote a book of poems. Which is how I play everyday. How to read from it without sweat. It sounds like you’ve been quite busy with the release of this book. During the poetry reading he read many poems from his book. Thanks so much for joining us tonight in the middle of your very hectic schedule. I just realized I don’t have a question there. I still have doubts about four or five I cut and maybe two or three I included. Can you tell us a little about it in the few minutes we have left? Terrance Hayes is probably the most innovative poet addressing the complexities of race in America today. Thanks. But I go through writing slumps and it helps me bump out of them a little. Re-reading all of Terrance Hayes, who's clearly emerged as one of the most important poets of his generation. We sliced the watermelon into smiles. By Terrance Hayes. Black Lives Matter: A (By No Means Complete) Reading List “Books are a form of political action. Terrance Hayes: No, I ordered them in the index. I like Scrabble as a challenge for finding words, but I find myself losing games because I went for something clever instead of what scored the most points. Though How to Be Drawn is mostly made of long poems, the shortest is the sonnet to Wanda Coleman. Wanda Coleman’s American Sonnet 95 … Welcome to The Rumpus! We sliced the watermelon into smiles. Appreciate the interest in my work. / For what good is it to me / if you can’t understand it? So it was interesting to revisit Hip Logic and find that my initial rating of 3 stars was more or less confirmed, but that I sense enough of what's coming to kick it up to 4 (not that stars are really the point, smile). Sometimes I think that would have been fun in the actual book. This assignment is based off a poetry reading with terrance Hayes. Terrance Hayes: And the title. I hope that what’s expressed there. Maybe. We work to shine a light on stories that build bridges, tear down walls, and speak truth to power. The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Terrance Hayes about his latest collection, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, playing Scrabble, and his attempt to define the “American” sonnet. Brian S: Yeah, every couple of years I do that poem-a-day thing in April, and if I get six or seven usable drafts out of it I’m happy. The order would have overwhelmed me otherwise. Anyway, I just try out different readings sets. Terrance Hayes: In my reading copy, I have punctuated the index. Terrance Hayes: There are a few online. I want to. I used a few bits for a series of drawings. Every month the Rumpus Poetry Book Club hosts an online discussion with the book club members and the author, and we post an edited version online as an interview. Sorry. I think anything I dug made it out of the house. However, it is Hayes’s intention to avoid becoming a temporary headline; he ultimately aims “to leave / A record of my raptures.”. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Did writing rescue Plath? Then when they suggested makes the lectures into a book, the forthcoming book happened. With its publication, Hayes joins a distinguished group of poets—among them, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ted Berrigan, John Berryman, Gerald Stern, and Natasha Trethewey—to successfully redress the sonnet for contemporary audiences. I could determine the first poem for each of the five sections, but just played with “suggesting” poems thereafter. And thanks for this terrific book as well. More from this author →, Tags: American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, Book Club, church, Dream Songs, Etheridge Knight, Hanif Abdurraqib, How to Be Drawn, John Berryman, Penguin Poets, poetry, poetry book club, religion, Rumpus Book Club, scrabble, sonnets, Terrance Hayes, Wanda Coleman, Wave Books, William Carlos Williams, Wind in a Box, Filed Under: Book Club Blog, Books, Poetry, Rumpus Original. Brian S: Does calling it a book of sonnets make it seem more self-important or something? Books are a reflection. This is an edited transcript of the book club discussion. The poems put us in conversation. I have my book open to page forty-eight which starts, “The umpteenth thump on the rump of a badunkadunk,” and I really want to hear that out loud. Brian S: Yeah, rule-breaking especially stands out to me. Though How to Be Drawn is mostly made of long poems, the shortest is the sonnet to Wanda Coleman. This review originally appeared in American Poets, Spring-Summer 2018. I remember when I first started studying them years ago wondering what a person could do in just fourteen lines and yet…. We sliced the watermelon into smiles. I am still trying to define the “American” sonnet. More Poems by Terrance Hayes. I used a few as the basis for a libretto that Carnegie Hall in April. Terrance Hayes: Well, there have been sonnets in every book. In the world of poetry that makes him “up and coming.” What struck me about Hip Logic is how it rises above much of the strife plaguing contemporary poetry by blending multiple genres, rather than conforming to one. Make the cut for this book t understand it C. ( Links to an external site..! Prose about Etheridge Knight, for many years I included hadn ’ t considered the difference until typed! Poetry Magazine Podcast September 2017 been collecting interviews, making drawings, writing poems and about. M asking mainly because of the book ordered chronologically “ his beloved a sketch of an with! 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