While the poem’s immediate context is post-Trump America, Hayes does not suggest that racial injustice begins or ends with one person or event. By using the American sonnet, a form that subverts the traditional sonnet to relate the Black experience, Hayes performs an act of resistance against Trump’s election. The poem’s specific context is America after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. “I Lock You …” is a poem about the meaning of being Black, American, and a poet in contemporary America. One of the most distinctive features of this collection is that each poem bears the same title: “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin.” For the sake of clarity during analysis, the poem’s first few words or lines can be considered a working title. The poem is part of a 70-sonnet collection, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin published in 2018. While the lines do not rhyme in the end, the poem contains many internal or half rhymes, which give it a musical quality. The lines are enjambed, rather than end-stopped however, the enjambments are mostly smooth. Undivided by stanzas, the poem has 14 lines of fairly regular length. “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin, is a lyric unrhymed sonnet by American poet Terrance Hayes.
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