''American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin'' is a 2018 collection of more than seventy

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...

s by Terrance Hayes. Written after the 2016 American elections, this collection treats topics like racism, masculinity, and politics. It was a finalist for the 2018

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

for poetry, and was shortlisted for the

T. S. Eliot Prize The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize that was, for many years, awarded by the Poetry Book Society (UK) to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Priz ...

for 2018.

Title and theme

The title of the collection, "''American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin''" (singularized to “American Sonnet”) is also the title of each poem in the book. Each sonnet addresses contemporary issues of American society and its politics. After the 2016 U.S election, the author decided to write political poems. and directly addresses

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

in some poems and does not hesitate to mock him, calling him "Mister Trumpet". The collection was inspired by

Wanda Coleman Wanda Coleman (November 13, 1946 – November 22, 2013) was an American poet. She was known as "the L.A. Blueswoman" and "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles". Biography Wanda Evans was born in the Watts, Los Angeles, California, Watts ...

's series of "American Sonnets"'' '' In the sonnets Hayes deplores the rising violence related to racism in America.'''' He raises some old themes in American literature like the cage of masculinity or the relationship between father and son in passages like:'' “Christianity is a religion built around a father/Who does not rescue his son. It is the story/of a son whose father is a ghost."''

Critical Reception

Spencer Hupp of

The Sewanee Review ''The Sewanee Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1892. It is the oldest continuously published quarterly in the United States. It publishes original fiction and poetry, essays, reviews, and literary criticism. History ''Th ...

sees the collection as a reminder of American suffering, because of racial violence but with hope for a better future: "If this book’s 1,148 uneven but often stunning lines prove anything, it’s that the threat of hate, the hope for personal redemption, and the possibility for reconciliation can be as much alive in art as they are in the culture that creates it."

References

{{Reflist 2018 poetry books American poetry collections Penguin Books books