Tara McEvoy on Terrance Hayes’s American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Burgess Prize runner-up 2019: Tara McEvoy’s analysis of a collection that explores the form’s boundaries earned her joint second place in this year’s Observer/Anthony Burgess prize
• The winning review: Jason Watkins on Daisy Campbell’s Pigspurt’s Daughter
• Joint runner-up: Kate Wyver’s reflections on the video game Sorry to Bother You

Tara McEvoy, 25, is a PhD student and editor of the Tangerine, a magazine of new writing. Her work has been published in Vogue, the Irish Times and the Wire. She lives in Belfast. Her piece “confidently navigates challenging material”, and, most importantly, sent the judges “back to the poems.”

James Baldwin described the predicament like this: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” Terrance Hayes’s latest collection, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, makes visible the outlines of the trap of history by pushing against the constraints of the 14-line sonnet form. The result is a book that speaks with urgency and authority, bearing witness to the absurdities and cruelties of the present moment.