User:PeterYatesVT/How to be Drawn

How to be Drawn is a collection of poetry by Terrance Hayes. The poems in this collection take on themes of racial individuality, social prejudices, and personal losses in everyday life. The main focus of these poems are to be   self care for an individual's image or personal hardships. The collection was a finalist for several awards. How to be Drawn was first published in 2015 by the Penguin Group.

Theme and Style
The major themes that coincide in this collection are that of racial and social injustices. Other themes throughout this work are violence, family troubles, and everyday personal loss. Hayes surveys, throughout this collection, how people see and how people are seen by others. The collection draws inspiration from other works of art from novels to music to games. In “How to be Drawn to Trouble,” the poem features lyrics from James Brown to explore the pressures of matrimonial and familial hungers. Then in the poem “Hot to draw an Invisible Man,” Hayes is shown drawing from Ralph Ellison’s work “Invisible Man,” analyzing what it means to be invisible but also visible in America.

The style used mostly throughout the collection for the poems was that of a free verse, which means the poem does not rhyme or follow the rules of common poetry. The diction used throughout the collection is normal and Hayes uses word play throughout his work. Hayes uses this style to convey the message that he has for each of his poems instead of drawing away using rhythm or rhyme.

Publication & Awards
How to be Drawn was published by the Penguin Group.
 * Finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Poetry
 * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
 * Winner of the 2016 NAACP Image Award for Poetry

I.	Troubled Bodies
•	What it Look Like

•	The Deer

•	How to be Drawn to Trouble

•	New York Poem

•	As Traffic

•	Wigphrastic

•	My Life as a Hammer

•	Gentle Measures

•	A concept of Survival

•	Who are the Tribes

II.	Invisible Souls
•	Black Confederate Ghost Story

•	How to Draw an Invisible Man

•	Barberism

•	The Carpenter Ant

•	American Sonnet for Wanda C.

•	Like Mercy

•	A Machine

•	Portrait of Etheridge Knight in the Style of a Crime Report: Part I

•	Portrait of Etheridge Knight in the Style of a Crime Report: Part II

•	Portrait of Etheridge Knight in the Style of a Crime Report: Part III

•	Elegy with Zombies for Life

•	Instructions for a Séance with the Vladimirs

III.	A Circling Mind
•	The Rose has Teeth

•	Antebellum House Party

•	Reconstructed Reconstruction

•	We should make a Documentary about Spades

•	For Crying Out Loud

•	Model Prison Model

•	Some Maps to Indicate Pittsburgh

•	New Jersey Poem

•	Self-Portrait as the Mind of a Camera

•	How to Draw a Perfect Circle

•	Ars Poetica for the Ones Like Us