If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Some of the resources available to me now allow me to put myself in new situations, but that has never been my ambition. The you, now & then of the last line is, I take it, the reader and also the assassin. Probably the dark blue skin, Of a black man matches the dark blue skin. Dave Killen/The OregonianThe Oregonian. Most late nights, the husband, father of two, and full-time professor escapes the "jam of life's traffic" by walking the 14 steps to his third-floor study. Tess's most recent book of poetry is called "Work And Days." In his fight for a retrial, Jackson is joined by a coalition that is beginning to form around the issue. Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Top 250 TV Shows Most Popular TV Shows Most Popular Video Games Most Popular Music Videos Most Popular Podcasts. People come up to me saying, You know, I think of you as a confessional poet. Thats OK, too; I think the word means to be opened up. I knew I could talk to this professor about Faulkner because he was teaching it. Americas struggle with itselfHas always had people like me at the heart of it. As of late February, the Oregon Attorney Generals office has conceded or partially conceded 340 of those cases. I like a little sea bass, too, or a little halibut. Some of the older teachers crowd in the doorway like befuddled geese. Ad Choices. A former college basketball star, he treats poetry like a timed game, a theatre for dramatic last-minute outcomes. JW: So your obligation is to ask questions? Hayes said hes disappointed in Rosenblums decision to wait, especially with her being the judge that oversaw his case 16 years before. Thats a nightmare for me. Sometimes he uses sonnets to stump the reader: This word can be the difference between knowing/And thinking. But Id say thats always been true. And then there are poems that are really - what's the word I want? frog waiting patiently at the front gate. But students often dont want that; they want a strategy for how to make it in the academy. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. So I just accepted that. In the Ramos case, three dissenting justices were concerned that states could face a potential tsunami of litigation if all active cases with nonunanimous jury convictions were invalidated. That figure is just moving around. Hes an older, white dude, and he was saying that he had been a victim of molestation, and he said, Once youve seen what real evil can do in the world, you know you dont have the luxury of saying, well, Hitler was a painter too. So I said to him, I actually dont disagree, I just feel like I could be nave for a while and pursue truth, and at the end of that, if I see something thats evil, I will say its evil. Of course I was wrong, but its become a practice that Im still trying to read as much as I can. TH: I feel limited as a painter. Im not sure how to hold my face when I dance, he writes: In an expression of determination or euphoria?. But then there are the poems that are just about feelings and about family, and maybe you dont have to have a dictionary or internet next to you. But I want it to yield something for my primary concerns: teaching and writing poetry. [10], In January 2017, Hayes was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. His 2010 collection, Lighthead, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. I like the texture of it, so the only way to get to that is to keep painting stuff and erasing it, and painting on top of it and struggling with it so the layers would be hidden. His office only handles the post-conviction relief cases when the individual is not in custody nor on post-prison supervision currently only four people. Emphasizing the necessity for African American people to adapt to the unfair standards of modern American society, Hayes demonstrates the struggles that vulnerable racial minorities have to suffer in order to gain a semblance of hope in advancing in the social hierarchy. The university space should be, ideally, a fluid space, but instead we often encounter people saying, This is at the top of the pyramid, and everything else is beneath it. I think that a good program values Language poets the same way they value Black Arts poets and confessional poets. Hayes was surprised at the Ramos ruling, having had little faith in the countrys criminal justice system. Years ago, I was on a panel with a guy who is a political and social poet, and he said to me, You know, at some point you do have to choose sides. Why? Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Terrance Hayes earned a BA at Coker College and an MFA at the University of Pittsburgh. My point about the academic is not about high or low, its just that theres outside information. But you have to know what kids are responding to. From the Spring 2018 issue of The Iowa Review. JW: Like the poem about her pulling a gun on you, Late? So maybe thats a form of ambivalence. My deepest ambition is always for the poem, but the growth comes from trying to not get stuck as a human being. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Youre a synthetic poet. Are existential jambalaya. In all of his work, five poetry collections to date, he ferociously unearths the layers of racist thinking and its harmful effects, often using the poem's form as his tool. Thesis, antithesis, and synthesizingthat certainly is my way of being in the world all the time. So for someone to say this is your audience and you have to give people the thing theyll really eat, Im saying you dont know what peoples capacity is. TAYLOR: Yeah. Im going to eat it the same. You wont admit it. Its like your grandfather worked every day at the mill, but you never knew what his favorite color was, or what cruel thing his mother said to him when he was ten years old. But clearly the cool-blooded Amphibian-American does not agree. I was wired that way from the outset, as a college kid without any concern with where it was going to go or who was going to like it. You cantGrasp your own hustle, your blackness, you cant graspYour own pussy, your black pussy dies for touch. I have to fight in ways that a normal American doesnt have to, he said. gas. But I dont think thats always true for other people. When I think about the Black Arts poets, people like Baraka, who I knew and hung out with, or Sonia Sanchez, to me the great tragedy is that theres this wall because theyre interested in blackness and uplift and a certain kind of identity, but I get no sense through their work of their personality. Hayes, 49, won the National Book Award in 2010 for his book of poems titled "Lighthead" and was a finalist twice more in 2015 and 2018. But now theres digital or social media, which people like my daughter are very aware of. The sonnet clips its authors wingsand yet a wide sample of appetites and aversions, vices and virtues, sneaks into it. But I had gotten into a habit of working as long as I wanted to on my poems. But if I dont know that, then the poem will also be about that; it will be about not knowing. Thats a better way of being an artist to me; thats a more interesting artist who doesnt know and is pursuing an answer versus an artist who does know. My sense is that the synthesis is what the university can do. The girls are eager to transform him with a kiss; the boys eager In the lines from Howl that, I suspect, Hayes has in mind, you can see how blackness is used as a prop. [7] He won the National Book Award for Lighthead[1] (in which he invented the "golden shovel" poetic form). In his poems, in which he occasionally invents formal constraints, Hayes considers themes of popular culture, race, music, and masculinity. Since this means there will be no classes for the rest But his felony excludes him from better-paying federal contracts, he said. They love their grandpop, Jackson said. What you find with the typical grad student, even on the first day, is theyre thinking about books and concepts. Ive always tried to stay very focused in terms of what I need to write. Menu. Its not necessarily thesis and antithesis, but several things that you might bring together. Accuracy and availability may vary. Eat something else. Bridging those things is my natural way of thinking, and I think of that as a collage. As a student of poetry, I find that confessionalism is a great tool that fiction writers dont have. In fact, you were a painter before you were a poet. As a poet, you know your limitations, and those limitations are the form of the person or the poet. When Id go home, all they said was, Why are you still going to school? And I would say, Youre not paying for it. Most of the time, I was going to leave. Born in 1971 in Columbia, SC, Hayess mother was a corrections officer and father a military barber. Im chasing it. How can I make my students better equipped as writers or readers or whatever? Like a coin toss that keeps coming up heads, iterated titles suggest an occult lucky streak bound to break. What's going on here? In my body of work, thats what Im aiming for, and I never can get it. My attitude is to split the difference. Perhaps easier to fathom is the notion that Hayes has so internalized the threat of execution that he sees his assassin in the mirror. That goes back to transparency. Its like James Joyce and Molly Bloom and a fifty-page sentenceJames Joyce really fucked some commas up. I would not want to do thatalthough maybe I will when Im eighty. I didnt really know any college graduates other than my teachers. States are allowed to use their own retroactivity test, and we do not know whether Oregon will follow the federal standard or come up with its own state test, Kaplan said. JW: What was it like when you were in grad school? What does it mean to say only certain people? Part of the reason for the relatively low number is insufficient data in many cases, defendants will never know if they were convicted by a split jury because their lawyer never asked and it was never preserved in court records, Kaplan said. They must withstand humiliating sexual reviews to participate in the economy at all: There was black male review for ladies nightAt the nightclub. Terrence Hayes was 19 when he shot a man in the leg in 2004. Hawaii, Florida, Chicago, Atlanta anywhere there was family, he was there, he said. "Terrance Hayes is an elegant and adventurous writer with disarming humor, grace, tenderness, and brilliant turns of phrase. Of his son the way one twilight matches another. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Terrance Hayes Reads American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin. Do you see paintings as a puzzle? And then, yes, as the title suggests, every single poem is a sonnet. [6] His second collection, Hip Logic (2002), won the National Poetry Series, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and runner-up for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. In seventy sonnets written after Trumps election, Hayes manages boundless anxiety with formal innovation. Its so erotic! And then for the next year, I was working on a poem that was totally a Keats imitation. I wouldnt limit it there: I would say, yes, Im African-American; yes, Im Southern; yes, Im male; yes, Im hip-hop; yes, Im neurotic; yes, Im a bastard poet. It gets into the art for arts sake versus social purpose argument, but I think the real purpose is who do you want at the table with you? Especially in poetry, although the joys are when its not poetry. Instead, Rosenblum is choosing to litigate these post-conviction relief cases in civil court until the Oregon Supreme Court delivers a ruling on whether Ramos applies to past cases. If were talking about class, the people who could survive as poets before were people who were wealthy already. "[7], In September 2014, he was honored as one of the 21 2014 fellows of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. How do you see that affecting creative writing programs? I was born in 71, and we had multitasking and were in the electronic age. I feel like thats something I cant do: the canvas is not big enough to fully capture consciousness in a poem. After missing out on his kids, he wants to make the most of his time with his grandkids. [1] In September 2014, he was one of 21 recipients of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, awarded to individuals who show outstanding creativity in their work. Terrance Hayes observes, "Even if you love the racket of ascension,/you must know how the power leaves you.". American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin ["Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous"] By Terrance Hayes. It seems like, at midcentury, whatever limitations they had, they had a common idea of literature, which probably valued highbrow modernism, whereas now its much more disparate and up for grabs. Movies. And SHAPIRO: We should tell people that Terrance Hayes is a black poet, and blackness - and maleness comes up a lot in these poems. You are beautiful because of your sadness, Hayes admits. Hayess sonnets emerge out of a sense of peril, and the evasiveness and protectiveness it requires. Terrance Hayes is a contemporary American poet born in 1971. My interest is not what people expect from me as a poet; I know I can make burgers, but can I make sushi? What I hate is a white canvas, and I dont like one layer of paint. Every time I tried to bring it up with my friends, they were like, Man, what are you talking about? I didnt expect everyone to want to talk to me about it. JW: Related to art, theres been a lot of critical writing about postmodernism and different kinds of theories, and you mentioned Benjamin. Currently a MacArthur Fellow, Hayes synthesizes disparate elements in his work: classical forms like the sonnet; popular culture references from hip-hop to Scooby-Doo; comments on race, especially African-American experience; modes such as the Japanese business presentation slide series pecha kucha; and reflections on fatherhood and family. It goes on - really specific, really concrete. He was a Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University until 2013, at which time he joined the faculty at the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh. A little bit of reading, talking to some people about art and how art worksthose are things I know work for basic stimulation. When I got in, the joy of college was my teachers. JW: So you went to Coker College because they gave you a scholarship in basketball? Youre not as fixed in one position. And there's a way that it changes slightly, and then there's a way that it's kind of relentless. Could you be a high school English teacher? My skepticism around strategy is that it doesnt have room for failure. So when my mother saw my earliest poems in the first book, she was like, Oh, it was just your imagination.. I was just at one on page 37, and it ends in the middle of an interstate rest stop parking lot. Theres some moments in David Foster Wallaces nonfiction, like Consider the Lobster, that do it. He, Jackson and hundreds like them all convicted by nonunanimous Oregon juries hope to have their cases retried after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Louisiana case last April that such verdicts are unconstitutional. TH: Support the Troops! The poet I mentioned who said you have to choose a side, its not like I disagree, its just, why would I rush? This makes the work morally ambiguous in ways some readers will resist: I suspect that not everybody will recognize blackness as any part, even a rejected part, of Trump, a man whose loathing of black people seems unabashed. In those nonfiction pieces, hes totally present, and Im totally with him; Im totally in his head. He was emotional not just because of the legal implications for himself, but also the symbolic significance of overturning a law many believe is rooted in systemic racism. Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes has written his most daring and reflective poems to date for his third collection, "Wind in a Box." Drawing on influences that range from Dr. Seuss and Amiri Baraka to David Bowie, the associate professor of creative writing at Carnegie Mellon explores identity, race, culture and the dark side of American history. I think he could just sit down, listen to some music every day, and feel like he could make an interesting poem. To me, the conversation is done once I choose a side. Im always torn between the dilemma of saying there has to be something worthwhile to someone other than myself, even though I can get pretty far just eating what I make for myself and having no one else at the table. Hayes is working to rebuild relationships strained by his decade-long absence. That poem is also a conversation about whether you have to choose a side. I want us to enjoy a meal together, and I cant say its only for me, even though there is a part of meand this is what I like about Ashberythat says, if you dont like it, thats your problem. Whats going to be the rhythm of my sentences? Maybe theyll like caviar, maybe youll like octopus. You come from a small town in South Carolina and went to college because you had a basketball scholarship. My father would say, Youre going to go to collegeyoure smart. But they didnt have any savings. Part of my personality, certainly, is because Im black, and Im Southern, and Im male. Then it was three years, and I was done. SHAPIRO: It seems like some of these poems are really grounded in American life today. by. The joke in my classes and in my household is that I am always timing and measuring everything. So suddenly, it's as if he himself is the assassin. "My Aesthetic Schizophrenia: An Interview with Terrence Hayes", Jonathan Moody, Audio: Terrance Hayes Reading for From the Fishouse, Library of Congress Online Catalog > Terrance Hayes, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terrance_Hayes&oldid=1111538819, Short description is different from Wikidata, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 21 September 2022, at 14:09. I also was in track and field. TH: Flexibility is what makes a good program. Jackson was still in prison when he heard about the Supreme Court ruling. The Still in Prison campaign is working to raise public awareness about the impact of Oregons law. The group is seeking support and placing the spotlight on Rosenblum urging her to take action now. I know you paint and have for a long time. I want to be writing about something; I want to have a subject like novels can, capturing a whole world. So I feel like, if Im going to make a meal, were going to sit down at the table and eat it together. Witnessing the struggle for freedom, from the American Revolution to the Black Lives Matter movement. To go back to your point about the later books, in Lighthead, the first poem begins with a line, I could never get the hang of Time, and the epigraph is a Borges quote from A New Refutation of Time. At some point I realized, even more than fatherhood, even more than parents, even more than race, the thing Im really obsessed with is measuring time. How would you characterize your writing? TH: One thing that people say is that were creating robots, and students are just writing the same poems. Every time Im flying out of Pittsburgh, I see your picture in the airport, with Pitt advertising, Come study with a genius. How do you feel about your position? Sometimes black students and female students will say, They didnt teach black writers, or There werent that many women. And I say, Right, but thats the symptom of their era; now its a new era, but its not like we can just forget the canon. If a kid says, We dont need Mark Twain, I say the canon still has to be folded in. My grandfather was a war veteran; my dad was in the army; my brother was in the army. You've got the soundtrack. When I stop by McDonalds for a cheeseburger, no one suspects what I am. As he remarks in this interview, he resists being tied to one adjective to describe himself as a poet. That might be a better way of thinking about it. Terrance Hayes is one of the most celebrated poets of his generation. You have to be adaptable. In this studio class that Ive taken, the teacher had a joke that I should take pictures of my paintings, because he would come over, and I would have a painting of a boy, and he would go away, and then an hour later it would be a painting of a tree, then he would go and come back and it would be a painting of a shoe, and its still the same canvas. While no agency or body in the state tracks nonunanimous convictions, a study by Oregons Office of Public Defense Services in 2009 found more than 40% of the 662 convictions it surveyed from 2007 and 2008 were nonunanimous. To fuck up some commas is an interesting idea. But when the time came and I looked at studio arts, I couldnt afford it. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. A white reader of these poems has to think hard about his own commodified analysis of them. The order of those things shifts depending on where I am that day: some days, Im a male poet first, and thats whats really going to inform the work; a lot of days, Im a black poet first and thats whats going to inform it. Terrance Hayes is a dazzlingly original poet, interested in adventurous explorations of subject and form. TH: Its true, I do like OHara, I like Berrigan, and I actually like Ashbery, too. My good fortune was that I was tall, so I played basketball. On the other side, a graduate student is so close to the professional world that they cant help but have those things influence them. He fears a more immediate kind of danger, which cant be aestheticized or glorified in verse. JW: When you went to Coker College, you went for visual arts. Growing up working class and not having anyone who had ever have gone to college, I didnt have an extreme pressure. The Supreme Courts Ramos v. Louisiana ruling allowed the verdict to be tossed out in many nonunanimous jury convictions that were still in the appeals process. Blacks make up 2% of Oregons population, but they represent 17.9% of petitioners. With success, you get encouraged to think, Im so special that people will just watch me be me. So when Pacino starts being himself in his movies and stops acting, people accept that and say, Oh, its Al Pacino! They all had faces of oranges in them and a bunch of other stuff. His claim of self-defense was rejected by a jury that convicted him, 10-2, of attempted murder, assault and unlawful use of a. You say it's really inventive. So I just accepted that. Terrance Hayes is a poet who reflects on race, gender, and family in works marked by formal dexterity and a reverence for history and the artistry of crafting verse. Hayes and Jackson have already served their decades in prison, but their felonies remain on their records a scarlet letter that continues to affect every aspect of their lives, even in freedom. This is not the first time Rosenblum has stood in the way of striking down nonunanimous jury verdicts in Oregon. When people read Sylvia Plath, everyone wanted to write confessional poems. The defendant can claim a constitutional violation occurred during the trial in this case, Jackson and his attorney would argue Ramos applies to him, which could grant him a retrial. Its not like you could move something out just because it happens to not look like you. There are beautiful, personal poems about Hayess father and the consequences of being abandoned by him. Whats going to be left out? Terrance Hayes. My teachers hustle, your blackness, you know, I say the canon still to! Like me at the heart of it was in the first day is. 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