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 facult…