“A self-portrait by the American poet Terrance Hayes graces the cover of “How to Be Drawn” (Penguin), Hayes’s fifth book of poems. If you want to be drawn, one straightforward plan would be to draw yourself, as Hayes has done; change the word to “represented,” and the political meanings of his title become clear. Hayes is black. In American poetry, if a black person wants to exist at all, he can either submit to representation by white artists or choose to portray himself. But words are trickier than charcoal and pencil: Hayes can’t make a poem that “looks” like Terrance Hayes, by the standards of visual art, since “Terrance Hayes,” by the standards of poetry, doesn’t exist until his words invent him. Authors, after all, aren’t causes; they’re effects produced by their own language.”