Summary Of How To Be Drawn By Terrance Hayes

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Terrance Hayes “How to Be Drawn” gives his perceptions in on race, culture, family, art, and issues that he had experienced in his life in three parts of the book. Hayes not only describes the struggles of racism for African American men, but he also talks about how we all as one view ourselves and how we believe others view us. The themes that were mostly discussed in this book was race and self. The author tells his story in his poems about the struggles of him being invisible and visible as an African American. There is a great amount of questions that are being asked about how we understand things? How we process memories? Hayes was incredibly creative when creating this book of poems by showing inventive ways to tell his stories by showing …show more content…

This poem created visual images that clearly changed the way he thought and felt at that time what he was going through as an African American man. In the sixth line, Hayes says, “My uncle used the money I gave him to buy a few vials of what looked like candy after the party…” (Hayes, pg 3). Terrance’s uncle was supposed to use that money for medicine and that is what his uncle portrayed it to be at the time. It wasn’t exactly what he thought his uncle was going to use that money for. Hayes explains to the readers that no matter how we view things it is not always how we see things. The poems that caught my attention are “Wigphrastic”, “How to be Drawn to Trouble”, and “Like Mercy”. These three poems all tie in together about how…… They were relatable because I am an African American that grew up in a white neighborhood. I wasn’t accepted by my peers or the children that lived on my block because of my skin color. The students always picked on my hair because it was nappy or because it was too greasy. So I always felt that if I started wearing weaves that individuals would stop making fun of my hair. I’ve always thought to myself why hair, skin, or clothes has to define who we are as a …show more content…

Hayes made a tribute to James Brown using the song, “Please Please Please”. This poem actually made me feel like I was in the reader’s shoes and I could just imagine me being in the room with him as he is saying “please please please”. I feel like it was more of him crying out for help and asking god please please please take me out of my misery or why am I never good enough? I could the feel the pain as I was reading this poem and over again because the language that Hayes used was so strong and very deep. “Like Mercy” he speaks about his relationship that he has with God. The speaker is angry and the fourth stanza on page 46 really stood out to me and I could feel how hurt and angry he was in the third line when he mentioned, “Shedeadshedeadshedead…”( Hayes, pg 46). The feeling of never being accepted in the white society is heartbreaking and will always be a struggle trying to accept ourselves because on one else

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