My Past And Future Assassin
Poets & Writers Magazine|July - August 2018

In his sixth book, a sonnet sequence published by Penguin in June, Terrance Hayes cuts deep, to the marrow of the American moment, in a form with a razor’s edge: Love poems for the forces trying to kill you.

Hanif Abdurraqib
My Past And Future Assassin
ONE can make a home wherever the body finds itself at rest. I imagine this to be true always, but especially now, while taking in the large plastic novelty fish hanging high on the wall above the head of Terrance Hayes. Even while slouching in his chair, Hayes towers above the table in front of him, so that the fish, a marlin, appears as a crown under the glow of red light humming overhead, darkening half of the marlin and half of the face of the poet. We are at Great Jones Cafe in lower Manhattan, a place Hayes told me is his “go-to spot” when we spoke earlier, trying to nail down where to meet. When I arrive, I find him alone in a corner, drink already on the table. Hayes is a Southerner at heart, having spent his childhood and early adulthood in South Carolina, so it comes as no surprise to find out why he has led me here, to this place he tells me he comes to every weekend, often alone. “I didn’t know how quiet it would or wouldn’t be in here,” he tells me as I sit down, in reference to my request that we find a low-key location for our interview. “But it’s the only place in this city where I can get good grits, so it’s one of the few places in this city I love.”

I imagine this to be his way of welcoming me into a small corner of his home.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July - August 2018 من Poets & Writers Magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July - August 2018 من Poets & Writers Magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من POETS & WRITERS MAGAZINE مشاهدة الكل
Literary MagNet
Poets & Writers Magazine

Literary MagNet

When Greg Marshall began writing the essays that would become his memoir, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Press, June 2023), he wanted to explore growing up in Utah and what he calls \"the oddball occurrences in my oddball family.\" He says, \"I wanted to call the book Long-Term Side Effects of Accutane and pitch it as Six Feet Under meets The Wonder Years.\" But in 2014 he discovered his diagnosis of cerebral palsy, information his family had withheld from him for nearly thirty years, telling him he had \"tight tendons\" in his leg. This revelation shifted the focus of the project, which became an \"investigation into selfhood, uncovering the untold story of my body,\" says Marshall. Irreverent and playful, Leg reckons with disability, illness, queerness, and the process of understanding our families and ourselves.

time-read
3 mins  |
July - August 2023
THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY
Poets & Writers Magazine

THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY

READING The Museum of Human History felt like listening to a great harmonic hum. After I finished it I found the hum lingering in my ears. Its echo continued for days.

time-read
4 mins  |
July - August 2023
The Sea Elephants
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sea Elephants

SHASTRI Akella's poised, elegant debut, The Sea Elephants, is a bildungsroman of a young man who joins a street theater group in India after fleeing his father's violent disapproval, the death of his twin sisters, and his mother's unfathomable grief.

time-read
4 mins  |
July - August 2023
The History of a Difficult Child
Poets & Writers Magazine

The History of a Difficult Child

MIHRET Sibhat's debut novel begins with God dumping rain on a small Ethiopian town as though. He were mad at somebody.

time-read
5 mins  |
July - August 2023
The Sorrows of Others
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Sorrows of Others

AS I read each story in Ada Zhang’s brilliant collection, The Sorrows of Others, within the first few paragraphs— sometimes the first few sentences— I felt I understood the characters intimately and profoundly, such that every choice they made, no matter how radical, ill-advised, or baffling to those around them, seemed inevitable and true to me.

time-read
6 mins  |
July - August 2023
We Are a Haunting
Poets & Writers Magazine

We Are a Haunting

TYRIEK White’s debut novel, We Are a Haunting, strikes me as both a love letter to New York City and a kind of elegy.

time-read
4 mins  |
July - August 2023
RADICAL ATTENTION
Poets & Writers Magazine

RADICAL ATTENTION

IN HER LATEST BOOK, THE LIGHT ROOM: ON ART AND CARE, PUBLISHED BY RIVERHEAD BOOKS IN JULY, KATE ZAMBRENO CELEBRATES THE ETHICAL WORK OF CAREGIVING, THE SMALL JOYS OF ORDINARY LIFE, AND AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE NATURAL WORLD WITHIN HUMAN SPACES.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July - August 2023
The Fine Print
Poets & Writers Magazine

The Fine Print

HOW TO READ YOUR BOOK CONTRACT

time-read
10 mins  |
May - June 2023
First
Poets & Writers Magazine

First

GINA CHUNG'S SEA CHANGE

time-read
10+ mins  |
May - June 2023
Blooming how she must
Poets & Writers Magazine

Blooming how she must

WITH ROOTS IN NATURE WRITING, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, POETRY, AND PHOTOGRAPHY, CAMILLE T. DUNGY'S NEW BOOK, SOIL: THE STORY OF A BLACK MOTHER'S GARDEN, DELVES INTO THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL ACT OF CULTIVATING AND DIVERSIFYING A GARDEN OF HERBS, VEGETABLES, FLOWERS, AND OTHER PLANTS IN THE PREDOMINANTLY WHITE COMMUNITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO.

time-read
10+ mins  |
May - June 2023