Will I love American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin?

The book contains 70 sonnets, all with the same title as the book. Quick-witted, ironic, and politically dedicated to good cause, Hayes speaks from his own experience as an African-American: “Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous/Darkness. Probably all my encounters/Are existential Jambalaya.” 

Winner of the National Book Award for his earlier work, Lighthead, he is a poet to watch for his moral sense and mastery of poetic form. The book was written in the first two hundred days of the first Trump presidency.

One title for every poem? A long chain of poems. Again, here, I find that narrative journey and acute urban scenes that sparkle with the energy of the derive: awake, alert, open not only to the flood of history erupting in the excruciating present but also to the “The feeling of wings clasping the back of the body,/the feeling of wings clapping wind along the spine.” What better words for setting out on the road?

I love poetry that employs new takes on old forms. The sonnet is once again brought alive by Hayes in a collection that feels poignant, playful, and urgent. I personally struggle with writing in the form and am blown away by the range and inventiveness of the nearly 80 sonnets in this action-packed collection.

My experience in reading these sonnets is one of joy: the pointed wit that paints Sylvia Plath as a drama queen and Trumpet (thinly veiled) as sexually tormented, the clear-eyed social and political criticism, the warm, broken, self-knowing heart. This collection rings true to me as… show more.