American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Description

In a sequence of seventy sonnets, this electrifying collection from Terrance Hayes turns the American sonnet into a living instrument for reckoning—interrogating what it means to be “American,” to love, and to confront the figure of the assassin. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, the poems braid present-day shock with echoes of the past and forebodings of what comes next, moving through dreams and nightmares with inventive wit and deep compassion. Hayes’s signature blend of formal mastery and lyrical urgency makes each poem feel both dazzlingly crafted and emotionally immediate, as history presses in from every angle. The result is a timely, haunting, and often hilarious meditation on violence, identity, and the fragile work of imagining a future worth inhabiting.

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