How Terrance Haye Challenges the Sonnet Form Essay Example

Terrance Haye is among the most decorated voices in contemporary American poetry. It is for this reason that his latest book, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassins has bagged some awards. In the book, Haye offers some poems that address the issue of racism in American society and how the vice is harming the black community. While the topic of the book suggests that its content will be sonnets alone, Haye's compositions challenge the primary form of this kind of poetry. Hayes challenges the traditional message of sonnets, uses different rhyme scheme and number of the cylical sequence of sonnets.

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Traditionally, the subject of sonnets has been love. The sonnets of Petrarch were addressed to his beloved Laura. Similarly, Shakespeare composed his great sonnet sequence on the subject of love. The first half of his sequence addressed to a woman while the remainder to a man. While this is the case, Terrance Haye turns from the secular subject of love and considers other themes in his sonnets. Haye rather than creating a sequence about love writes individual sonnets on the pressing issue of racism. Hayes' writing shows a serious commitment to mourning the black American life. For instance, in Sonnet 69, Hayes mournfully addresses an assassin to be taking the shape of the "N-word, black-eyed animal and existential jambalaya." Such terms charge his sonnets from the frequent subject of love to the issue of racism.

Terrance Hayes' poems additionally challenge the typical strict sonnets' rhyme schemes. The original form of sonnet was the Italian sonnet that had 14 lines arranged in an octet and a sestet rhyming as ABBA ABBA and CDECDE or CDCDCD respectively. The English sonnet, which came later was made up of three quatrains following the ABAB CDCD EFEF rhyme scheme and closing with a GG couplet. It is these two rhyme schemes that have been applied in the composition of various sonnets. Perhaps the Edmund Spencer rhyme where the quatrains are linked in an ABAB BCBC CDCD EE pattern has been used. Unlike the Italian, English and Spenserian sonnets, Hayes' poems are governed by the loosest of rhyme schemes. He creates 14 lines in his sonnets with each line containing at least ten syllables each but pays little attention to the rhyme scheme. For instance, I Lock You in an American Sonnet That is Part Prison, follows an ABCD EFGH IJKL MN pattern.

Lastly, Hayes does not challenge the cyclical sequence of 14 sonnets and 70 poems connected by a single addressee or linked by repeating a final line. Hayes bends the rules in his favor and follows a different sequence though there are ideas, images, and lines that cycle across his 70 poems that appear in a muted musical arrangement. In his books back, there is an index of lines for each section. In this way, each sequence can be stretched into sonnet redouble. A crown of 14 sonnets and14 linking lines in order.

Conclusion

In summary, Terrance Haye's bends the rules and challenge the sonnet form. The poet does so by writing on a topic outside the universal subject of love that is characteristic of sonnets. Beside the subject of his poems, Haye additionally failed to stick to a specific rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is an essential part of sonnets that characterizes them. Lastly, Hayes follows his sequence of the poems and not the typical cyclical sonnet sequence. All in all, the author has still managed to captivate with his sonnets.