Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes (b. 1971) is an American poet, critic, and educator. He was a professor of creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University and taught at New York University. From 2017 to 2018, he served as poetry editor of The New York Times Magazine. Hayes has published several poetry collections, including Muscular Music (1999) and Lighthead (2010). Muscular Music received, among other honors, the Whiting Award, while Lighthead won the 2010 National Book Award for Poetry. His other distinctions include a MacArthur Fellowship (2014), the Hurston/Wright Award in Poetry, and the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, both in 2019. His essay collection To Float in the Space Between focuses on the poet Etheridge Knight.