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I’m struck by how that really is sonnet-like, not just in its layout but in its laying out of contrast.

His future on earth long before he arrived. To his future on earth long before he arrived. He almost sees in his boy’s face, an openness His own face was made of the woman he loved. Here’s one example from my expanding list of great poems here: Hayes has intuited the rhythm of the sonnet and then seen how far he can stretch it.

I got over that complaint about 12 lines into the first one, though. The purist in me protested when I first realized these “sonnets” are neither metrical nor rhymed. In fact, I come eventually to wonder if they aren’t ultimately impressive as well, kind of like the squawks in a Coltrane solo – not so much errors as reminders of the technical brilliance it takes to pull off jazz at that level. The result is that even those rare misfires function as part of a collection. Many more are flat-out excellent while most of the “ordinary” ones are also effective and compelling. I think there are a handful of these that work less well – a few are too gimmicky for my taste (“You don’t seem to want it” or “I cut myself on some glass”) and some seem a little too repetitive of the motifs that Hayes weaves throughout (like the “male hysteria” conceit”) – but even those tend to be redeemed by the cumulative power of the project. The book turns out to be an interrogation of those possibilities while also probing the nature of “sonnets.” It’s angry, thoughtful, committed to a project of self-betterment, and full of images and turns of phrase that do remarkable things, things like the title of the book which also serves (in the singular) as the title for each of the separate 50-or-so poems here. Then, in that verbal ambiguity, new possibilities arise: “assassin” is metaphorical, and “my” refers not just to one person but to many occupying the same position. It sounds as if it’s making sense even though it can’t be true at any literal level you can’t have more than one assassin, but the grammar coheres. OK, you have to start with the title here.Įven if you aren’t a poetry person, you have to be struck by it.