American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Cover Image: American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry

Named a Best American Poetry Book of the 21st Century (So Far) by The Atlantic

A powerful, timely, dazzling collection of sonnets from one of America’s most acclaimed poets, Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award-winning author of Lighthead

Sonnets that reckon with Donald Trump’s America. - The New York Times

In seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country’s past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered - the wonders of this new collection are irreducible and stunning.