Robert Hayden

Born: 04 August 1913 • Died: 25 February 1980

Born Asa Bundy Sheffey on August 4, 1913, Robert Hayden was raised in the Detroit neighborhood Paradise Valley. In 1944, Hayden received his graduate degree from the University of Michigan. Hayden published his first book of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust (Falcon Press), in 1940. Hayden’s poetry gained international recognition in the 1960s, and he was awarded the grand prize for poetry at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966 for his book Ballad of Remembrance (Paul Breman, 1962). Hayden died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on February 25, 1980. (Source)

Poems by Robert Hayden

Night, Death, Mississippi by Robert Hayden

August 4, 2025

“Time was. A cry? / A cry all right. / He hawks and spits, / fevered as by groinfire.” — Robert Hayden

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

October 29, 2023

“What did I know, what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices?” — Robert Hayden