Terrance Hayes Named 11th Westminster Poet

The English Department is delighted to announce that Terrance Hayes has accepted an invitation to become the next Westminster Poet. Hayes will read in Werner Centennial Theater on Monday, April 11, 2011, at 7:30 p.m. and then interact with students and teachers in small group sessions the following day. Throughout his career, Hayes has been committed to exploring “the intersections of poetry and the public sphere,” a commitment which has brought him to places as varied as high schools and prisons to read poems and conduct workshops.

Born in Columbia, S.C., Hayes is currently a professor of creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa. He is the author of four award-winning books of poems. His first book, Muscular Music (1999), a polished version of his M.F.A. thesis at the University of Pittsburgh, won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, while his second collection, Hip Logic, was a 2001 National Poetry Series selection. Wind in a Box, Hayes’ third book, was listed by Publishers Weekly as one of the top 100 books published in 2006. His most recent collection, Lighthead, which was published in 2010, has garnered excellent critical reviews. The poet and critic Cornelius Eady has said of Hayes’ work, "First you'll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. Then you'll notice the grace, the tenderness, the unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the open and generous way he takes in our world."

Hayes is a remarkably inventive young poet who loves to play with language and form in his poems, but his poems stay rooted in an old-fashioned sense of storytelling. About his own work, Hayes has said, “There are recurring explorations of identity and culture in my work and rather than deny my thematic obsessions, I work to change the forms in which I voice them. I aspire to a poetic style that resists style.” Hayes goes on to say, “In my newest work, I continue to be guided by my interests in people: in the ways community enriches the nuances of individuality; the ways individuality enriches the nuances of community.”

Hayes first came to the attention of English teachers Scott Reeves and Michael Cervas when they followed certain “clues” in Tony Hoagland’s book What Narcissism Means to Me about a particular “character” named Terrance to Internet sites about Hayes’ work as a poet and to YouTube presentations of readings by Hayes. After Reeves and Cervas read all four of Hayes’ books, they recommended that the English Department invite him to be the next Westminster Poet. Hayes will be the 11th in a continuing series of poets dating back to Linda Pastan’s visit in the spring of 2000. The series is made possible through a generous grant from the Ford-Goldfarb Fund, a gift from Maureen Ford-Goldfarb and Kirsten Ford ’00 that helps to support English Department enrichment activities.

Interestingly, Hayes will also be a featured reader at the Hillstead Museum’s Sunken Garden Poetry series on July 21, 2010, for those who would like a sneak preview of next year’s Westminster Poet. Here are a few poems by Terrance Hayes.

Clarinet

I am sometimes the clarinet

your parents bought

your first year in band,

my whole body alive

in your fingers, my one ear

warmed by the music

you breathe into it.

I hear your shy laugh

among the girls at practice.

I am not your small wrist

rising & falling as you turn

the sheet music,

but I want to be.

Or pinky bone, clavicle.

When you walk home

from school, birds call

to you in a language

only clarinets decipher.

The leaves whistle

and gawk as you pass.

Locked in my skinny box,

I want to be at least

one of the branches

leaning above you.

Shafro

Now that my afro's as big as Shaft's

I feel a little better about myself.

How it warms my bullet-head in Winter,

black halo, frizzy hat of hair.

Shaft knew what a crown his was,

an orb compared to the bush

on the woman sleeping next to him.

(There was always a woman

sleeping next to him. I keep thinking,

If I'd only talk to strangers. . .

grow a more perfect head of hair.)

His afro was a crown.

Bullet after barreling bullet,

fist-fights & car chases,

three movies & a brief TV series,

never one muffled strand,

never dampened by sweat--

I sweat in even the least heroic of situations.

I'm sure you won't believe this,

but if a policeman walks behind me, I tremble:

What would Shaft do? What would Shaft do?

Bits of my courage flake away like dandruff.

I'm sweating even as I tell you this,

I'm not cool,

I keep the real me tucked beneath a wig,

I'm a small American frog.

I grow beautiful as the theatre dims.