DOES DU BOIS'S CONCEPT of "double consciousness" apply to the relationship of African-American poets to the poetic traditions of the European continent, as digested by English poets and U. S. poets of European descent? Or--to narrow the question--is an African-American poet in a position to simply write a sonnet, without bearing in my mind that the form has for centuries been elaborated within a culture that regards him/her as other? Or does that African-American poet need to maintain some critical, even subversive distance from the form even while practicing it, even while drawing some strength from engaging in a tradition that can serve as a wily and infinitely resourceful collaborator?
The single-consciousness strategy we might associate with Phyllis Wheatley, from whom Hayes distances himself in the book's very first poem--
The black poet would love to say his century began
With Hughes, or God forbid, Wheatley, but actually
It began with all the poetry weirdos & worriers, warriors,
Poetry whiners & winos falling from ship bows, sunset
bridges & windows.
--so Hughes and Wheatley are in there, but so (it sounds like) are fellow sonneteers Hart Crane and John Berryman, not to mention Plath, Dickinson, Rilke, and the late great Wanda Coleman, who gets a lovely shout-out in the acknowledgements. Hayes's is a double-consciousness engagement with the sonnet tradition.
Well and truly married to the tradition though Hayes's book is, he also wants to show it a few new metrical tricks, to be as topical as he wants to be (Trump pops up, of course, as do Maxine Waters, Dylann Roof, and other names in the news), and even to be as geeky as he wants to be (Dr. Who is often invoked). It manages to be in the library and in the street at virtually the same time, with occasional visits to whatever basement or bedroom was Hayes's geek lair.
I vaguely intended to get around to Lighthead when it won the National Book Award, but never did--I think I definitely will now.
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