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Robert Hayden Quotes

Poet

Robert Hayden was an American poet known for his profound exploration of race and identity. His poetry often reflected the history and culture of the African American community, having a significant impact on contemporary poetry.

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All Poetry Poem Slavery Love Americans Art Evil Survival Cold Discovery

Famous Robert Hayden Quotes

“Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand by the window looking out at moonstruck trees a December storm has bowed with ice. Maple and mountain ash bend under its glassy weight, their cracked branches falling upon the frozen snow. The trees themselves, as in winters past, will survive their burdening, broken thrive. And am I less to You, my God, than they?”

Poetry Prayer Strength Poem Survival Winter Resilience Ice Storms

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“their vaunted liberty no body pushes me around i have heard them say land of the free they sing what do they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom they boast of in their ignorant pride have seen the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities paradox on paradox how have the americans managed to survive”

Poetry Freedom Liberty Poverty Poem Survival Americans

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Fury of truth: fury of righteousness become angelic evil demonic good?”

Truth Poetry Evil Poem Anger Righteousness Fury

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“How shall the mind keep warm save at spectral fires--how thrive but by the light of paradox?”

Thinking Mind Brain Learning Developing Paradox

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“all art is pain suffered and outlived”

Art Pain Poetry Suffering Poem Survival

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstraction police and threaten us. Reclaim now, now renew the vision of a human world where godliness is possible and man is neither gook nigger honkey wop nor kike but man permitted to be man.”

Love Poetry Humanity Evil Acceptance Poem Tolerance Brotherhood

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“confess i am curiously drawn unmentionable to the americans doubt i could exist among them for long however psychic demands far too severe much violence much that repels i am attracted none the less their variousness their ingenuity their elan vital and that some thing essence quiddity i cannot penetrate or name”

Character Poetry Poem Essence Ingenuity Americans Appeal Elan

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?”

Love Care Poetry Family Poem Family Relationships Fathers Sons Those Winter Sundays

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“I will no longer ask for more than you have freely given or can give.”

Giving Poetry Poem Favors Receiving Requests

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Know that love has chosen you to live his crucial purposes.”

Love Poetry Poem Importance

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“It was as though you struggled against fierce current jagged with debris to save me then. I am desperate still.”

Poetry Poem Rescue Desperation Struggles Struggling

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“In time, you will come to regard my questioning with a certain pained amusement; in time, get so you would hardly find it possible to live without my joke and me.”

Poetry Poem Dependence Questions Sphinx Riddles

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Ars Longa Which is crueller Vita Brevis life or art?”

Life Art Poetry Poem Cruelty

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“here among them the americans this baffling multi people extremes and variegations their noise restlessness their almost frightening energy how best describe these aliens in my reports to The Counselors disguise myself in order to study them unobserved adapting their varied pigmentations white black red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering distinctions by which they live by which they justify their cruelties to one another charming savages enlightened primitives brash new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy how describe them do they indeed know what or who they are do not seem to yet no other beings in the universe make more extravagant claims for their importance and identity”

Poetry Culture Community Race Poem Racism Race Relations Americans

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“something they call the american dream sure we still believe in it i guess an earth man in the tavern said irregardless of the some times night mare facts we always try to double talk our way around and its okay the dreams okay and means whats good could be a damn sight better means every body in the good old u s a should have the chance to get ahead or at least should have three squares a day as for myself i do okay”

Poetry Opportunity Poems American Dream Equal Opportunity

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Oh, what a world we make, oppressor and oppressed. Our world-- this violent ghetto, slum of the spirit raging against itself. We hate kill destroy in the name of human good our killing and our hate destroy.”

Poetry Hate Violence Poem Destruction Hatred Oppression

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“World I have loved and loving hated, is it your sickness luxuriating in my body's world?”

World Love Body Poetry Hate Poem Illness Worldliness

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“It seemed to me as we were talking about Christ rising from the dead, the sun popped over the mountain. That was indicative of Christ rising - a new day. It just makes sense.”

Christ Talking Sun Mountain Make Sense Rising New Day

Author:Robert Hayden

“Your presence was shore where I rested/ released from the hoodoo of that dance, where I spoke/ with my true voice again.”

Voice Dance Spokes Shore Your Presence

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“[My poetry is] a way of coming to grips with reality . . . a way of discovery and definition. It is a way of solving for the unknowns.”

Way Reality Discovery Definitions Poetry Is

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“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”

Moving Names Dark Kindness Mouths Slavery Ships Murderer

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“Standing to America, bringing home black gold, black ivory, black seed.”

Home America Black Standing Gold Slavery Seeds Ivory

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing and the night cold and the night long and the river to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning and blackness ahead”

Long Running Night Fall Darkness Cold Shapes Rivers Crosses Slavery Terror Hunters Blackness Hounds Lanterns Beckoning

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Harriet Tubman, woman of earth, whipscarred, a summoning, a shinning”

Earth Slavery Men Women Summoning

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“Midnight Special on a sabre track movering movering, first stop Mercy and the last Hallelujah.”

Firsts Lasts Special Mercy Slavery Track Midnight Hallelujah

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“As well have a talon as a finger, a muzzle as a mouth, as well have a hollow as a heart.”

Wells Heart Mouths Fingers Hollow Talons Muzzle

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“As you continue writing and rewriting, you begin to see possibilities you hadn't seen before. Writing a poem is always a process of discovery.”

Writing Process Possibility Discovery Rewriting

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“This freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth.”

Men Earth Beautiful Liberty Air Terrible Terrible Things

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fire blazes. No one ever thanked him.”

Made Hands Father Fire Cold Clothes Labor Weather Sunday Cracked Up Early Weekdays

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“Art is not escape, but a way of finding order in chaos, a way of confronting life.”

Way Art Order Findings Art Is Chaos Confronting

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?”

Knows Office Lonely

Author:Robert Hayden

“I believe it's true that one person can make a difference. But how much more difference 100 people make, or rather 99.”

People Believe Persons I Believe Differences Making A Difference That One Person One Person Can Make A Difference

Author:Robert Hayden

“We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us.”

Humans Political Evil Accepting Struggle Goes On Police Monsters Frightened Abstraction Deliverance

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

About the Author

Born: August 4, 1913
Died: February 25, 1980
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 33

Books & Sources

Collected PoemsRelated source material

Collected ProseRelated source material

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