{"title":"Books by Terrance Hayes","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780141989112","title":"American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE\u003ci\u003e SUNDAY TIMES \u003c\/i\u003ePOETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003cbr\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe black poet would love to say his century began\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWith Hughes or God forbid, Wheatley, but actually\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eIt began with all the poetry weirdos \u0026amp; worriers, warriors,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePoetry whiners \u0026amp; winos falling from ship bows, sunset\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBridges \u0026amp; windows. In a second I'll tell you how little\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWriting rescues.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo begins this astonishing, muscular sequence by one of America's best-selling and most acclaimed poets. Over 70 poems, each titled 'American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin' and shot through with the vernacular energy of popular culture, Terrance Hayes manoeuvres his way between touching domestic visions, stories of love, loss and creation, tributes to the fallen and blistering denunciations of the enemies of the good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmerican Sonnets\u003c\/i\u003e builds a living picture of the whole self, and the whole human, even as it opens to the view the dividing lines of race, gender and political oppression which define the early 21st Century. It is compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, bewildered - and unstoppably, rhythmically compelling, as few books can hope to be.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201472233650,"sku":"9780141989112","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141989112_432fa04b-1172-47d6-af9f-7324891531fc.jpg?v=1786011219"},{"product_id":"9781802063394","title":"So to Speak","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA dazzling collection of poems from the T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted author of \u003ci\u003eAmerican Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince the publication of his first book, \u003ci\u003eMuscular Music\u003c\/i\u003e, in 1999, Terrance Hayes has been one of America's most exciting and innovative poets, winning acclaim for his sly, twisting, jazzy poems, and his mastery of emotive, restless wordplay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eSo to \u003c\/i\u003eSpeak, his seventh collection, a tree frog sings to overcome its fear of birds, talking cats tell jokes in the Jim Crow South and a father addresses his daughter. In lyric fables, folk sonnets, quarantine quatrains and ekphrastic do-it-yourself sestinas, Bob Ross paints your portrait, green beans bling in the mouth of Lil Wayne and elegies for the late David Berman and George Floyd unfold amid the pandemic. These poems lyrically capture the often-incomprehensible predicaments of the present, as Hayes shapes music into language, and language into music.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44581368266930,"sku":"9781802063394","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781802063394_ccd6e953-015c-4e8c-a6ab-7feaeddcd123.jpg?v=1786026871"},{"product_id":"9780143137733","title":"Watch Your Language","description":"\u003cb\u003e“Dazzling . . . a verbal and visual feast that defies genres.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Hayes [is] \u003c\/b\u003eone of the best and most important poets now writing.” —Craig Morgan Teicher, \u003ci\u003ePoetry\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the National Book Award–winning author of \u003ci\u003eLighthead\u003c\/i\u003e, Terrance Hayes, a fascinating collection of graphic reviews and illustrated prose addressing the last century of American poetry—to be published simultaneously with his latest poetry collection, \u003ci\u003eSo to Speak\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCanonized, overlooked, and forgotten African American poets star in Terrance Hayes's brilliant contemplations of personal, canonical, and allegorical literary development. Proceeding from Toni Morrison's aim to expand the landscape of literary imagination in \u003ci\u003ePlaying in the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e (\"I want to draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography\"), \u003ci\u003eWatch Your Language\u003c\/i\u003e charts a lyrical geography of reading and influence in poetry. Illustrated micro-essays, graphic book reviews, biographical prose poems, and nonfiction sketches make reading an imaginative and critical act of watching your language. Hayes has made a kind of poetic guidebook with more questions than answers. \"If you don't see suffering's potential as art, will it remain suffering?\" he asks in one of the lively mock poetry exam questions of this musing, mercurial collection. Hayes's astonishing drawings and essays literally and figuratively map the acclaimed poet's routes, roots, and wanderings through the landscape of contemporary poetry.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56225251262837,"sku":"9780143137733","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780143137733_b40f1fbd-4b35-4733-ba66-36f078fee771.jpg?v=1786011063"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-terrance-hayes.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}