Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes is a poet who reflects on race, gender, and family in works marked by formal dexterity and a reverence for history and the artistry of crafting verse. Employing an almost improvisational approach to writing, Hayes conjoins fluid, often humorous wordplay with references to popular culture both past and present in his subversion of canonical poetic forms. Terrance Hayes received a B.A. (1994) from Coker College and an M.F.A. (1997) from the University of Pittsburgh. He was affiliated with Xavier University of Louisiana (1999–2001) and Carnegie Mellon University (2001–2013) before joining the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh as a professor of writing in 2013.