Uploaded June 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
In 70 poems Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of America, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of Donald Trump’s presidency, the poems are haunted by the country’s past and future errors, as well as its dreams and nightmares. Hayes’ brilliant turns of phrase have earned him a National Book Award for his 2010 work 'Lighthead' (2010), as well as a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur genius grant.
In the time since publishing 'American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin' the bundle has only become more relevant. The poems are by turns inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholic, and bewildering—exactly like the past eight years in American life. Hayes approaches them with disarming humor and tenderness, championing everyday realities that too often go unexamined and unsung.
In 70 poems Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of America, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of Donald Trump’s presidency, the poems are haunted by the country’s past and future errors, as well as its dreams and nightmares. Hayes’ brilliant turns of phrase have earned him a National Book Award for his 2010 work 'Lighthead' (2010), as well as a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur genius grant.
In the time since publishing 'American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin' the bundle has only become more relevant. The poems are by turns inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholic, and bewildering—exactly like the past eight years in American life. Hayes approaches them with disarming humor and tenderness, championing everyday realities that too often go unexamined and unsung.
