# Poetry (Robert Hayden)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-robert-hayden/579165>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 21, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-robert-hayden/579165 "2011-04-21T01:24:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-robert-hayden/579165/1 "2011-04-21T01:24:32Z")

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Just tonight I reread some poems by Robert Hayden, and I found myself again impressed by him. Are there any other Robert Hayden fans here? What poets do you like?

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**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-robert-hayden/579165/2 "2011-04-21T20:16:17Z")

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I haven’t read any at all - I’ll get back to you on him once I’ve had a chance to follow through on your recommendation.

Poets I like - Oh, my! Seamus Heaney, Walt Whitman, e e cummings and Carl Sandburg are among my better-known favourites. I’m immersed in the current Canadian poetry scene at present, and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my delvings into Don McKay, Michael Ondaatje, Kate Braid, Matthew Tierney and Jeramy Dodds. I’m a bit ticked that I had to miss George Elliot Clarke and Lorna Crozier at the Art Bar the other night, but that’s life.

What is it you like about Robert Hayden, and who else do you enjoy?

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**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-robert-hayden/579165/3 "2011-04-24T02:45:42Z")

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What do I like about Hayden? I think it’s his ability to frame a mood. From “Middle Passage”

> [@](#):
>
> Shuttles in the rocking loom of history,  
> the dark ships move, the dark ships move,  
> their bright ironical names  
> like jests of kindness on a murderer’s mouth;  
> plough through thrashing glister toward  
> fata morgana’s lucent melting shore,  
> weave toward New World littorals that are  
> mirage and myth and actual shore.

Who else do I like? Robert Frost, Stephen Vincent Benet for his “John Brown’s Body”, Henry Reed, who as far as I know only wrote one poem that’s notable, “Lessons of the War”, but which is both funny and poignant at the same time. Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology”.