A dazzling collection of poems from the T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted author of American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Since the publication of his first book, Muscular Music, in 1999, Terrance Hayes has been one of America's most exciting and innovative poets, winning acclaim for his sly, twisting, jazzy poems, and his mastery of emotive, restless wordplay.

In So to Speak, his seventh collection, a tree frog sings to overcome its fear of birds, talking cats tell jokes in the Jim Crow South and a father addresses his daughter. In lyric fables, folk sonnets, quarantine quatrains and ekphrastic do-it-yourself sestinas, Bob Ross paints your portrait, green beans bling in the mouth of Lil Wayne and elegies for the late David Berman and George Floyd unfold amid the pandemic. These poems lyrically capture the often-incomprehensible predicaments of the present, as Hayes shapes music into language, and language into music.

"Hayes is a maestro of poetic forms and these poems sing with a musical dexterity that embraces vulnerability and ambiguity . . . So to Speak reads like an ambitious mixed-media project questioning the role of art in representing suffering . . . Soul-searching questions ripple through a series of electrifying American Sonnets about James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Octavia E Butler, Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone, reimagining the works and voices of many black cultural icons." - Guardian

"Hayes’ poems never fail to play, thrillingly, with the constraints of form, and they engage with culture, past and present, while remaining deeply rooted in the personal. Don’t miss this one." - Lit Hub

"These are pieces that fuse trauma and humor, erudition and silliness in ways that somehow preserve those disparate qualities" - The Washington Post

"Across three various and virtuosic sections, Hayes examines the personal and public, from fatherhood to the murder of George Floyd, in his muscular and meditative seventh collection. With a masterful eye for image and description . . . Hayes’s writing unfolds musically and dynamically . . . These original, ruminative poems showcase one of the most rightly acclaimed poets writing today." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[A] polyphonic, multivalent collection of poetry . . . Hayes' role as an oracle of the auricular remains remarkable . . . The poet's nimble knowledge of music and visual arts is notable . . . Throughout, Hayes continues to stretch the limits of language and explore the far regions of English, while his formal experimentation shines . . . May this poet's brilliance always shine." - Booklist (starred review)