From the Auroral Darkness
John Hatcher examines the various dimensions of Hayden's poetry, and especially the link between the poet and his Faith, which has remained largely unexplored and imperfectly understood. The author writes from his own perspective as Robert Hayden's friend and fellow Bahá’í, as a poet and teacher himself and a serious student of Hayden's poetry, and in uncovering its Bahá’í frame of reference he gives us Hayden the religious poet - not a rhetorical 'official' poet, but a true poetic voice whose faith is present, at a profound level, in all his work.
Robert Hayden was winner of the Grand Prize for Poetry at the First World Festival of Negro Arts, and 1975 Fellow of the Academy of American Poets. He served two terms as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, was a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and, until his death in 1980, professor of English at the University of Michigan and poetry editor for the Bahá’í magazine World Order.
Robert Hayden refused to be labeled as either a 'black' or a 'Bahá’í' poet. Yet no modern poet has written so well from both these perspectives - as a Black American in a violent society, and as a Bahá’í in, he firmly believed, a period of crucial transition for mankind.
Full Title[edit]
From the Auroral Darkness: The Life and Poetry of Robert Hayden
Author[edit]
Publisher[edit]
ISBN[edit]
HC 978-0-85398-188-4
SC 978-0-85398-189-2
Available From[edit]
Hard Cover George Ronald
Soft Cover George Ronald
