Blackness - “For Robert Hayden”
Blackness is a keynote for permeating racism. In “For Robert Hayden,'' Terrance Hayes interrogates Robert Hayden, “Is this why you were quiet when other poets sang/of the black man’s beauty? Is this why/you choked on the tonsil of Negro Duty?/Were there as many offices for pain/as love? Should a black man never be shy?/Was your father a mountain twenty/shovels couldn’t bury? Was he a train/leaving a lone column of smoke?” “For Robert Hayden” is a rejoinder to Robert Hayden’s popular poem “Those Winter Sundays.” Terrance Hayes’ rhetorical questions, which are intended for Robert Hayden, infer that Hayden’s emotional detachment from his father, who did his utmost best to keep them temperate during the unpleasantly cold winters, is attributed to embarrassment. Terrance Hayes speculates that Hayden was mortified of having a black father. Comparing Hayden’s father to “a lone column of smoke” hints at the segregation of Hayden’s father at home and at work which could be ascribed to his blackness.
A Black-Eyed Animal - “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“Inside me is a black-eyed animal”]
Terrance Hayes elucidates, “Inside me is a huge black/Bull balled small enough to fit inside/The bead of a nipple ring. I mean to leave/A record of my raptures.” Metaphorically, the ‘black-eyed animal epitomizes a repressed voice of a black individual. Although the bird is huge, it has been suppressed to the degree that it mimics a ball. Therefore, the bird lacks the sovereignty to fly wildly .
Cage versus Dirt- A Black-Eyed Animal-“American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“Inside me is a black-eyed animal”]
Terrance Hayes queries, “Would you rather spend the rest of eternity/With your wild wings bewildering a cage or/With your four good feet stuck in a plot of dirt?” The cage is an emblem of constraint that hinders the black-eyed animal from exploring the wild terrains such as dirt. Comparatively, the dirt represents the black-bird’s unconstrained autonomy. Perceptibly, a wild bird would rather be set free than be constricted in a dreary, impeding cage.
A Circle - “How to Draw a Perfect Circle
A circle denotes volatile perfection. Terrance Hayes explicates, “Everything the eye sees enters a circle,/The world is connected to a circle: breath spools from the nostrils/And any love to be open becomes an O. The shape inside the circle.” The ubiquity of circular objects indicates that circles amplify perceptible perfection .However, the perfection can cancel out naturally, for, “Everything is connected/By a line curling and cancelling itself like the shape of a snake/Swallowing its own decadent tail or a mind that means to destroy itself.” Therefore, faultlessness is not unqualified; it can deconstruct voluntarily.
“Stank minuscule husk” - American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“Why are you bugging me you stank minuscule husk”]
Terrance Hayes wonders, “Why are you bugging me you stank minuscule husk/Of musk, muster & deliberation crawling over reasons/And possessions I have & have not touched?/Should I fail in my insecticide, I pray for a black boy/Who lifts you to a flame with bedeviled tweezers.” The ‘stank minuscule husk’ embodies a troublesome, insignificant racist ( assassin) who expects black people to reverence him. Terrance Hayes holds that the assassin is immaterial based on the demeaning adjectives: “stank, minuscule and husk.” According to Hayes, the assassin does not meet the threshold of a black boy’s adulation.
Racket of ascension - “Mystic Bounce”
Terrance Hayes observes, “Even if you love the racket of ascension,/you must know how the power leaves you.” The “Racket of ascension” is emblematic of the social progress that results in the upgrading of one’s social rank. Being a slave embodies a stasis that would not sanction the ‘mystic bounce’ of social refinement.
