Meet Terrance Hayes in “How to Proceed”
Terrance Hayes is my guest in the second episode of the podcast i make along with The House of Literature in Oslo..
Published: 28. August 2020
When Norway went into semi-lockdown in March, I turned to poetry and literature for much needed conversation and reflection. And one of the poets I turned to was Terrance Hayes.
In this podcast, he talks about intimacy and vulnerability, about his obsession with time, form and order, and poetry as both weapon and refuge.
Poetry wins out. Because poetry asks you to trust some combination of head and gut – mind, body, soul. It's so many overlaps, reading between the lines, but also reading the lines themselves. Poetry rewards that kind of thinking.
— Terrance Hayes, poet
Hayes has published six poetry collections. He has won a number of awards, and lots praise from critics. He is the former poetry editor of New York Times Magazine, and currently a professor of English at New York University.
Hayes' work is deeply original, innovative, playful and urgent. His poetry is a complex layer of language and form, an investigation of identity and memory, race and violence, masculinity and vulnerability. In Hayes' own description, his primary model for writing is music – to write a language as close as possible to music.
“How to Proceed” is a podcast about writing, creativity and the world we live in right now, created along with The House of Literature in Oslo (Litteraturhuset).