So to Speak, a powerful, timely, dazzling new collection of poems from Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award–winning author of Lighthead, reminds us of the strange and lyrical grammar of thinking and feeling.

On the one hand, these fabulous fables, American sonnets, quarantine quatrains, and ekphrastic do-it-yourself sestinas animate what Toni Morrison called “the writerly imagination of a black author who is at some level always conscious of representing one’s own race.” On the other hand, these urgent, personal poems contemplate fatherhood, history, and longing with remarkable openness and humanity. So To Speak is the mature, restless work of one of contemporary poetry’s leading voices.

Q&A with Yanyi.