Terrance Hayes, Bagley Wright, and the Library of Congress

Last week I attended a Bagley Wright Lecture on Poetry at the Library of Congress, given by Terrance Hayes. His lecture was on “Ideas of Influence” where he discussed Etheridge Knight and – you should really just listen to the lecture yourself because I’m getting ready to jack up this explanation – the idea of poets being “liquid.” Liquid, in the sense of being able to be influenced by many different groups – whether that be a local group of writers you meet with on a regular basis versus attending a workshop like Cave Canem, which potentially can bring people from all over the nation.

Hayes has a new collection of poetry coming out this year called How to be Drawn. The video below is him reading a poem from that collection (That’s an assumption on my part because of the title).