Poet Terrance Hayes

Poet Terrance Hayes, a professor of creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the recipient of the 2010 National Book Award for Poetry, for his collection Lighthead (Penguin, 2010).

Hayes has published three other collections: Wind in a Box (Penguin, 2006), included in Publishers Weekly Best 100 Books of 2006; Hip Logic (Penguin, 2002), which was a 2001 National Poetry Series winner; and Muscular Music (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2005; Tia Chucha Press, 1999), which was awarded a Kate Tufts Discovery Award.

In addition to a Pushcart Prize, Hayes has been awarded a Whiting Writers Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. He also received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2009.

In this video recorded for a PBS NewsHour ArtBeat program, Hayes reads "Fish Head for Katrina". Enjoy! Hayes is an excellent reader of his own terrific work.

Jeffrey Brown's ArtBeat interview with Hayes, "For Hayes, Pittsburgh and Poetry Are No Strangers", was broadcast in April 2008 and can be found here. An extended interview and reading with Hayes, produced for the NewsHour's Poetry Series, are here.

Credit for Photo of Terrance Hayes: Yona Harvey

Resources

Terrance Hayes Biography

Terrance Hayes Biography, Department of English, Carnegie Mellon University

Terrance Hayes Profile at Poets.org (Text of eight of Hayes' poems is available at that page. Audio is available for five of the poems.)

Terrance Hayes Profile at Poetry Foundation 

Terrance Hayes Profile at Blue Flower Arts (Literary Speakers Agency)

Bob Hoover, "Carnegie Mellon's Hayes Wins National Book Award", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 18, 2010

"CMU's Terrance Hayes Wins Coveted National Book Award for Lighthead", CMU Press Release, November 18, 2010

"Coker College Alum Receives National Book Award", PRWeb, November 18, 2010

Terrance Hayes Page at Penguin.com and Video Page at "The Reading Room"

Jonathan Moody, "My Aesthetic Schizophrenia: An Interview with Terrance Hayes", Nidus, Winter 2005

"Interview with Terrance Hayes, Spring 2010", In Capital Letters (American University College of Arts & Sciences)

Audio Archive for Terrance Hayes at From the Fishouse

Terrance Hayes at Emerson College on December 2

Terrance Hayes on YouTube (Hayes reads from Lighthead here.)

Lighthead at GoogleBooks

Review of Terrance Hayes' Lighthead at Weave, June 2, 2010

Review of Terrance Hayes' Lighthead , "Hayes New Poetry Challenges, Honors American History",  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 23, 2010

Review of Terrance Hayes' Lighthead at TweetSpeak, 2010

Terrance Hayes on FaceBook