Wind in a Box (Poets, Penguin) [Paperback]

Terrance Hayes (Author)

Book Description

Series: Poets, Penguin | Publication Date: March 28, 2006

A new collection from the award winner who has become one of the most compelling new voices in American poetry. Terrance Hayes is an elegant and adventurous writer with disarming humor, grace, tenderness, and brilliant turns of phrase. He is very much interested in what it means to be an artist and a black man. In his first collection, Muscular Music, he took the reader through a living library of cultural icons, from Shaft and Fat Albert to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. His second collection, Hip Logic continued these explorations of popular culture, fatherhood, cultural heritage, and loss. Wind in a Box, HayesÂ’s resonant new collection, continues his interest in how traditions (of poetry and culture alike) can be simultaneously upended and embraced. The struggle for freedom (the wind) within containment (the box) is the unifying motif as Hayes explores how identity is shaped by race, heritage, and spirituality. This new book displays not only what the Los Angeles Times calls the range of a "bold virtuoso," but also the imaginative fervor of a poet in love with poetry.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this searching follow-up to the acclaimed Hip Logic, Hayes bluntly concludes that "everyone/ is a descendant of slaves" and, more tentatively, wonders "if outrunning your captors is not the real meaning of Race?" A series of "Blue" poems ("The Blue Bowie," "The Blue Terrance") considers 20th-century representations of race, culling wisdom and impressions from poet-activist Amiri Baraka, filmmaker and performer Melvin Van Peebles and even Dr. Seuss: "Blacks in one box. Blacks in two box/ Blacks on/ Blacks stacked in boxes stacked on boxes." Utilizing a range of forms and voices—Dante's terza rima, jerky blues in the spirit of Langston Hughes, Frostian lyrics, contemporary prose poems—Hayes brilliantly delivers the aeolian flux promised by the title: "a signature of wind,/ my type-written handwriting reconfiguring the past." (Apr.)
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About the Author

Terrance Hayes was born in Columbia, South Carolina. Muscular Music was the winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Hip Logic was a winner of the National Poetry Series. A recipient of a Whiting Writers Award, Hayes teaches creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143036866
• ISBN-13: 978-0143036869
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Terrance Hayes was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1971. Lighthead, his most recent poetry collection, won the 2010 National Book Award. His third collection, Wind in a Box (Pengiuin 2006), was named one of the best 100 books of 2006 by Publishers Weekly. His other books of poetry are Muscular Music (1999), which won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Hip Logic (2002), which won the National Poetry Series Open Competition. His honors include a Pushcart Prize, three Best American Poetry selections, a Whiting Writers Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book by this profound arbitrator of all styles, December 21, 2006

By 

Sean T. Dougherty - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wind in a Box (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

For the Blue Sequence, for the Borges, for the funk and the experimentation, for the hearbreaking narrative right beside the elliptical maneuvaring, for negotiating all styles to make a new style(s), for the appreciation of aesthetics that cross without crossing out any, this is my vote for best book of poems in 2006, and beyond.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God Bless the Rage in Us./It's How We Know Each Other., May 12, 2007

By 

K. Harms "BioCookie" (New Orleans, Louisiana United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wind in a Box (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

The above title is a quote from one of the six poems in the collection which share with collection's title. Haye's poetry is angry and blue. It's wild and yet contemplative, structured and yet abstract. Which means nothing in terms of a review, but he is possibly the strongest voice in American poetry today. His words are powerful and relentless. He is the future of American poetry and he's already arrived.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not stupid, not boring, not overly intellectual, October 31, 2008

By 

Ian Gazarek - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wind in a Box (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

Hayes has something that I really like, something that's rare in modern poets: he has the ability to be both intelligent and playful at the same time. He combines a number of different modern poetry styles to create poems that are confusing, thrilling, interesting, sad, childish, and heartfelt all in the best of possible ways. I never found myself reading a poem I didn't like.