Robert Hayden

Introduction

For many years Robert Hayden has been writing a seminal and protean poetry. Of his books, Heart-Shape in the Dust appeared in 1940; The Lion and the Archer, with Myron O'Higgins, were published eight years later, in 1948. Only one collection appeared during the next decade, Figures of Time, in 1955. Two collections were issued during the 1960's—A Ballad of Remembrance, London, 1962, and Selected Poems, 1966. Words in the Mourning Time: Poems was published in 1970, and The Night-Blooming Cereus, again in London, in 1972 (Pinsky & Dietz, pp. 45).

Thesis Statement

Robert Hayden's use of Black writing themes

Discussion

Julius Lester, reviewing Words in the Mourning Time for The New York Times Book Review, wrote that Robert Hayden was among the most undervalued and unrecognized poets of the United States." Until the publication of Hayden's most recent volume, Angle of Ascent: New and Selected Poems, this was true. Various reasons might be given to account for this fact, among them foreign publication of two volumes and small press publication of others, with the attendant problems of limited distribution.

Robert Hayden has better insight into the situation, however. In an interview that was videotaped which he recorded for the "Writers' Forum" series at the State University of New York College at Brockport, Hayden was posed with questions about "Black poetry." His response to the questions was that form of an expression that has the endorsement of various radical negro poets, has been beneficial to Caucasian academics that refuse to accept poetry written by African-American poets. Hayden contended that most "Black poetry" was and still is relegated to courses in "Black Literature" and is not often taught in the standard English literature syllabus. The inference to be made is that somehow there are special standards to be applied, standards that need not be applied ...