Reddit reviews American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Penguin Poets)

You should probably credit the author [Terrance Hayes]

This poem is just one of many with the same title, from a book also with the same title: American Sonnets to My Past and Future Assassin

The project was partially birthed out of an earlier Hayes poem - [American Sonnet for Wanda C.] which directly references American Sonnet 88, by Wanda Coleman

Wanda Coleman's "American Sonnet" poems, of which there are over 100, are actually kind of hard to find in print, especially since they haven't been collected in one place as far as i can tell - [American Sonnet 10, by Wanda C.] -- She explains her process in this [Wanda C. Interview]

The Kenyon Review explains the whole shebang in this [4 Part Series]

With all that immediate context out of the way, to say that it is purely a response to Trump or "politics" would be downplaying it severely. [This is America] [This is America] [This is America] etc - It's difficult to condense our history of racism and violence and classism, especially if you're not american.

The ending of this poem is very similar to Ross Gay's [Within Two Weeks...] - It is the question of what does it mean to be a black American. How you can both be proud of an America full of icons of justice and change and progress, but also aware that America's past is racist, and also its future will continue to be racist. What do you say to this two-faced America?

>It is not enough to love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.

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