L2L Robert Hayden (ft. Carol Andrews)

Collected Poems

Robert Hayden

Robert Hayden grew up in Detroit’s “Paradise Valley,” a diverse but impoverished area of the city, yet managed to become one of the most distinguished writers of his time. Both at Fisk University and at the University of Michigan, he was a distinguished professor and became Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (akin to Poet Laureate of the United States) from 1976 to 1978. He considered himself an American poet, rather than a black poet — “the same way Yeats is an Irish poet” — and found inspiration from a range of poetic forebears, his Baháʼí faith, and the times around him. A “poet’s poet” whose work is simultaneously erudite and sublime, this week Leigh, P. T., and Dr. C. examine Hayden’s life and poetry.