Literature
Robert Hayden
1913–1980 · poet, essayist, professor
The first African American Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, who grew up in Detroit's Paradise Valley and made that neighborhood a lasting subject of his poems.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Ann Arbor, Michigan
aged 66- Birth name
- Asa Bundy Sheffey
- Detroit years
- 1913–1941
- Field
- Literature
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Hayden was born in Detroit to parents who separated before his birth and was raised by foster parents next door, Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden, in the crowded Black neighborhood of Paradise Valley. Poor eyesight kept him out of sports and pushed him toward books. He studied Spanish at Detroit City College (today Wayne State) but left in 1936, one credit short, to work for the Federal Writers' Project researching Black history and folklore in Michigan; his first book, Heart-Shape in the Dust, came out with a Detroit press in 1940. After graduate work and teaching at the University of Michigan and 23 years at Fisk University, he returned to Ann Arbor in 1969. Poems such as Those Winter Sundays and the Elegies for Paradise Valley recall the hard, tender Detroit of his youth.
Highlights
- First Black U.S. Consultant in Poetry (Poet Laureate), 1976–1978
- Poems Those Winter Sundays, Middle Passage and Elegies for Paradise Valley
- Grand Prize for Poetry, First World Festival of Negro Arts, Dakar (1966)
- First book Heart-Shape in the Dust (Detroit: Falcon Press, 1940)
- Studied at Detroit City College, now Wayne State University
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Lived here · 1910s–1930s
Paradise Valley (historic district)
Demolished
The Black neighborhood and entertainment district where he grew up; most of it and neighboring Black Bottom were razed for freeways and urban renewal in the 1950s–1960s. Paradise Valley Cultural and Entertainment District Park downtown now recalls the name.
Studied here · early 1930s–1936
Wayne State University
He majored in Spanish here and left in 1936, one credit short of a degree.
Buried here · 1980
Fairview Cemetery (Ann Arbor)
His burial place in Ann Arbor, according to Wikidata.