Robert Hayden (1913-1980)

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Introduction

"Robert Hayden." A brief introduction to Hayden. Also, on Langston Hughes, Hayden, and others, "Masters and Master Works: On Black Male Poetics," by Afaa M. Weaver. Academy of American Poets.

"Robert Hayden." Poetry Foundation. Ed. Catherine Halley. Good, encyclopedia-type introduction to the poet's themes, style and techniques, with a biography and samples of poems.

"Robert Hayden."An introduction to Hayden, plus excerpts of reputable critical discussions of some poems. Contents: About Hayden's Life and Career, by Mark A. Sanders; On Hayden's Early Work and Cultural Context; On Hayden's History Poems; "Robert Hayden's Epic of Community," by Benjamin Friedlander; On Hayden's Early Work and Paul Laurence Dunbar; On "Middle Passage"; On "Runagate Runagate"; On "A Letter from Phyllis Wheatley"; On "Night, Death, Mississippi" ; On "Aunt Jemima of the Ocean Waves"; On "Elegies for Paradise Valley"; On "The Dogwood Trees"; On "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home." Modern American Poetry. Ed. Jim Smethurst and Cary Nelson.

A Teachers Guide for Robert Hayden, from Heath Guides

Literary Criticism

Conniff, Brian. "Answering 'The Waste Land': Robert Hayden and the Rise of the African American Poetic Sequence" [T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"]. African American Review Fall 1999

Francescato, Simone. Lost Voices of the Trans-Atlantic Journey: Three Texts by John Berryman, Robert Hayden and J.M. Coetzee. 49th Parallel ejournal

Glaysher, Frederick (ed.) A review of The Collected Poems of Robert Hayden. Reviewed by Major Jackson in Philadelphia Citypaper.net, April 4–11, 1996

Goldstein, Laurence, and Robert Chrisman, eds. A review of Robert Hayden: Essays on the Poetry (U of Michigan P, 2001). Reviewed in African American Review Spring 2003, by Fritz Oehlschlaeger

Hirsh, Edward. Poet Edward Hirsh writes about Hayden's poem, "The Whipping." "Poet's Choice" in the 4/7/02 Washington Post

Pavlic, Edward M. "'Something patterned, wild, and free': Robert Hayden's angles of descent and the democratic unconscious," African American Review Winter 2002

An explication of "Those Winter Sundays" by Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. WGBH, Public Television (removed). Robert Pinsky's brief remarks about the strong feelings readers have about Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays." Slate magazine.

Tolleson, Martha. Explication of "Those Winter Sundays" from Professor Tolleson

Removed articles

Friedlander, Benjamin. "Robert Hayden's Epic of Community," Melus Fall 1998 (removed).

Murphy, Jim. "Here only the sea is real": Robert Hayden's postmodern passages. Melus Winter 2002 (removed).

An overview of Robert Hayden's life and poetry from XJ Kennedy and Dana Gioia's Introduction to Poetry (removed)

main page | 20th-century literature | 20th-century poetry | later african american poets | father-son poems

1998-2010 by Jan Pridmore