Terrance Hayes’s Poetic Reflection

Akshay K. Sinha

ENGL 1102 12:30 TR

Mr. Andrew Nance

6 September 2016

Terrance Hayes’s Poetic Reflection

        Terrence Hayes has established himself as a writer who can effectively communicate his message in both a sophisticated manner and in a common form. This is seen in both of his poems, “What it Look Like,” and “American Sonnet for Wanda C.,” through the use of his elliptical syntax, diction and rhetorical devices, and poetic structure. In his review essay about Hayes’s poems and poetic style, Christopher Spaide expands upon how Hayes demonstrates his messages, while inserting his own opinions about some of the major ideas, like stereotypes. Spaide’s review essay works in the sense that he is able to complement Hayes’s main points, while emphasizing his own argument to the audience. By doing this, he is able to show his audience the significance behind Hayes’s thoughts. Altogether, Spaide uses a plethora of factors, when explained properly, shows his stance on Hayes’s writing style.

In the poem, “What it Look Like,” Hayes uses multiple literary skills and terms throughout his poem. The one skill that Spaide highlights more than any other is how Hayes incorporates elliptical syntax in his poem. An elliptical sentence is one that if the sentence structure was flipped, it would not have the same meaning as it did originally, while using the same word. One common example of this is told across most math classes; a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square. Hayes uses these kinds of phrases throughout both of his poems to carryout his message about stereotypes. In the review, Spaide continues to talk about the stereotyping message along with the unique elliptical style that Hayes conveys in “What it Look Like.” When Spaide says, “formless substance that his shape- shifting style,” he is describing how Hayes uses elliptical syntax in this poem. This message of stereotypes comes in when Hayes says, “I care less and less about the shapes of shapes because forms change and nothing is more durable than feeling.” (Lines 3-6) When Hayes says this, he is talking about how he does not care about the way something looks because the substance is what truly matters, regardless of what it looks like. Spaide then goes on to expand on this on the second page of his review, when he talks about the opening in “What it Look Like.”  This goes on to show how Spaide uses ethos in his review article. When Spaide talks about the stereotypes that Hayes brings up in his poem, it shows how he is using the literary device of ethos. This is true because the concept of stereotypes can relate back to ethics in general.

        Another way in which Spaide’s review works is by using the rhetorical device of logos. Spaide uses logos by logically comparing several of Hayes’s poems. By using this Spaide is able to further Hayes’s arguments and thoughts. This is demonstrated by the way in which Hayes uses descriptive language along with the continues use of elliptical syntax in his various poems. For example, in his poem, “American Sonnet for Wanda C.,” Hayes uses this descriptive language in his elliptical syntax. Spaide then highlights this by quoting parts of Hayes’s other works. This is specifically seen when Spaide mentioned the excerpt from Hayes’s, “How to Draw a Perfect Circle.” In this excerpt, Spiaide shows how Hayes uses descriptive language along with elliptical syntax by showing the, “variations on the theme of circles—the letter O, the number zero, the sound Oh, and a dozen round objects” (Spaide 4). Another definition of elliptical syntax is the varied use of diction from a sophisticated standard to slang. This is initially seen in Hayes’s, “What it Look Like.” In this poem, Hayes goes from using intricate phrases and highly skilled diction to coming up with his own slang like the word, “trill” which means truly real (Hayes 1). This high skill of poetic writing can be seen in Hayes’s formation of his poems When one meticulously looks over Hayes's poem’s, like “What it Look Like,” it can be noticed that there is no rhyme scheme throughout the poem. This helps establish Terrance Hayes as being able to write in a very professional form. Spaide continues to show this in his review by quoting the opening of the poem. Spaide demonstrates that when Hayes changes his language from an informal one to a more formal one that it supports the second definition of elliptical syntax. Spaide ties this back to the idea of logos by logically describing his argument about Hayes’s poetic style. In the review article, Spaide himself says that Hayes’s writing can be weird (Spaide 4). When he says this about Hayes’s writing style it supports that Hayes uses elliptical syntax in his writings because he goes from a more inform form, the “weird” sentences, to a very formal form.