American Samizdat: The Sweetgum Dark

"Night, Death, Mississippi"

Robert Hayden offers a fascinating instance of the singularity of artistic lives and legacies. Most commonly known to a general poetry reading public for a single, regularly anthologized poem of undeniable craft and emotional power, “Those Winter Sundays,” he led a far more expansive poetic life of notable accomplishment. In 1976, the first Black faculty member in English at the University of Michigan served also as the first Black Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, the equivalent of today’s Poet Laureate.