Where was robert hayden born

His parents separated early in his childhood. During his childhood, Sue Ellen entertained Hayden with African American folktales and stories about Reconstruction-era racial atrocities, based on her own experiences as a maid working on Ohio River steamships.

Robert hayden cause of death

Sue Ellen had been married before to a man named Jim Barlow, who worked on the boats and died young. Hayden recalled that his mother never stopped loving her first husband, with whom she had had three children. In a March 3, interview with the poet and editor Alfred Poulin, Jr. By the time Hayden graduated from high school in , he had committed himself to becoming a poet.

In the following year, he enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he studied under the British poet W. Auden, who became a strong influence. In , Hayden received his Master's degree. The writer Julius Lester was among his students. Three years later, he returned to teach at the University of Michigan and remained there until his death.

Robert hayden poems

In , he served as poetry consultant now, poet laureate at the Library of Congress, becoming the first African American to hold the position. Collected Prose and Collected Poems were published posthumously. Glaysher, Frederick. The Collected Poems of Robert Hayden. New York: W.