Caroline D. Murray collection on Robert Hayden and his poetry (Ms.2008.028)

Biographical note

A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Caroline Murray started her career as a middle school mathematics teacher. She left teaching to raise two children and when she returned to the work force, it was as a social worker with the Dept. of Retardation in Connecticut. In 1998 she audited some literature courses at her local community college, focusing on Black literature and international literature. In one of these courses, she discovered the poetry of Robert Hayden. A follower of Bahaۥi herself, she became deeply interested in the way his faith influenced his poetry. This interest resulted in her writing study guides to introduce others outside the formal educational context to Hayden's poetry.

Asa Bundy Sheffey was born in a poor neighborhood in Detroit on August 4, 1913. His father deserted his mother before the baby's birth and, finding herself unable to care for her child, she gave him to her neighbors Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden. The couple changed his name to Robert Earl Hayden and raised the small, introspective child in their reportedly tumultuous home. A voracious reader, Hayden was one of the few African-Americans in his high school. He went on to Detroit City College, now called Wayne State University, only to withdraw in 1936 for lack of money. He took W.P.A. jobs as a historical researcher on African-American history and folk culture topics and also worked as a drama and music critic for one of Detroit's African-American newspapers. In 1940, he married Erma Inez Morris, a concert pianist and music teacher and also published his first work, Heart-Shape in the Dust. He studied at the University of Michigan from 1941-1942 with W. H. Auden who, recognizing Hayden's poetic gifts, became his mentor. In 1943, Hayden became a Bahaۥi. In 1946, he took a teaching position at Fisk University in Nashville where he remained until 1969 when he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan. He was elected a fellow of the Academy of American Poets in 1975 and from 1976-1978, he was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position now called Poet Laureate. He died on February 25, 1980.