Robert Hayden lecture, "Poetic Uses of Slave Narratives," at the University of Iowa, September 13, 1974

Speaker 1: The following was recorded June 13th, 1974 as part of the Sixth Annual Institute on Afro-American Culture, held at the University of Iowa. Speaking on Poetic Uses of Slave Narratives is Professor Robert Hayden. A Professor of English at the University of Michigan. Making the introduction is Darwin Turner, Chairman of the Department of Afro-American studies at the University of Iowa. Darwin Turner: In 1966 Robert Hayden received the grand prize for poetry at the first World Festival of Negro Arts held in Dakar, Senegal. And in 1971, he received the Russell Loines Award for poetry from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Such international recognition was long overdue for one who had published his first volume, Heart Shape in the Dust, 26 years earlier. And who was so highly admired by the poets, critics, students, who knew his work. Darwin Turner: Robert Hayden was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1913. He attended Wayne State University and received a Master of Arts from the University of Michigan, where he earned Avery Hupwood Awards for poetry in 1938 and 1942. After teaching at the University of Michigan for two years, he taught at Fisk University in Nashville for 23 years and then returned to the University of Michigan, where he is now a Professor of English. He has served as a writer in residence at several institutions, a teacher at Bread Loaf. He's in popular demand as a reader of poetry and he's just completed a contract, and says he'll never do it again, a contract as editor consultant for Scott Foresman. Darwin Turner: Robert Hayden has edited anthologies, he's written plays, he's written seven volumes of poetry. The most recent being Words in the Morning Time, 1970 and the Night Blooming Serious, 1972. This productivity is astounding when one realizes that Robert Hayden rarely has had leisure for writing. He is not an individual who has floated through life on a series of research awards. For more then 20 years, poetry was for the moments which could be seized from his hours as father, husband and teacher of four to five college English classes. For those of you who have been spoiled by the academic schedule of such institutions as University of Iowa, let me remind you I'm talking about four to five three hour credit classes per term. Darwin Turner: Despite such handicaps of limited time, Robert Hayden has never written hastily. Instead he has created work admired for it's style, it's careful craftsmanship and it's verbal magic. Although his themes and subjects have varied, most often in his poetry as in his life, he has emphasized his belief in the oneness of people. He has refused to permit critics, other poets or readers to restrict his poetry to any one subject. But more then any other poet of the world, Robert Hayden has drawn upon and recreated the rich heritage of Black America. Drawing partly on the materials which he gathered, while supervising research in Afro-American history and folklore for the Federal Writers Project. Darwin Turner: This evenings topic is Themes from Afro-American History: A Poetic Reading with Commentary. Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Hayden. Robert Hayden: I want to thank Darwin Turner for that warm and generous introduction. I feel now that all the time that I spent teaching classes and trying to write poetry somehow justified. I want to begin by saying, well first of all that I fear that whenever I come here to do would be somewhat peripheral because you are concerned primarily with the slave narrative. And as Darwin and I talked about on the phone, as we corresponded about it, he's corresponded and I've called him back. I thought that no it really isn't peripheral because in several instances the material that became the core for poems came from these sources. Robert Hayden: I'd like to say before I begin reading these poems and commenting on them, something about my outlook, something about my purpose as a poet in regard to the use I've made of this material. And I'm just going to mention a few things, I'm just going to throw out a few ideas and then begin to read the poetry because I'm really not here to give a lecture about poetry, but to read it. I think that perhaps after this performance, some of the points that I mention here at the beginning might be points that we will discuss later on. Robert Hayden: I began writing poems drawn from Afro-American history a very long time ago. I remember all back in the 30's, working on a poem about Nat Turner and performed as a kind of theater piece or mass chant or something in Detroit, I don't recall. But it wasn't any good. It was pretty bad. And I hadn't thought about that poem for a long time. But when I thought about it recently, I realized just how long it's been that I have found this material fascinating. And I wasn't always aware of when I was using it, except that it was extremely interesting and fresh and unhappy. It had not been used before. And there was a time in my life when I felt that in order to set the record straight, some of the misconceptions about our history ought to be challenged. And some of the truth ought to be presented. And I certainly didn't think I knew all the truth or that I could set the record straight all by myself. But at least I could try to present the truth as I saw it. Robert Hayden: Now in my old age, I'm still interested in writing history poems. I've gone a little more philosophical about it. And here are a few poems that may be relevant here. Oh good. One. I see history as the record of man's humanities, let us say. Humanities spiritual evolution. As the story of human psychic development. For me, the true history of humanity is spiritual history. The story of what human beings have become, how they have evolved. I think that I'm trying to write, or I have been trying to write the spiritual history of a people, because I think this is the only true history, the spiritual history. Robert Hayden: Another point, Afro-American history cannot be properly studied or written about without reference to world history. I think we have to keep, I think that as a poet, I have always kept in the back of my mind or in my heart or somewhere, the idea that when I write about Harriet Tubman, when I write about Sojourner Truth, when I write about Daedalus, I'm writing about people. And I'm writing about human beings who reacted in a particular way, in a special way to special and dreadful conditions. Robert Hayden: A third point, the poet in using historical material, is he writing history in conformative with his own biases? Perhaps. But ideally I think any poet who handles this material is trying to get down to the essence of what the experiences have been. What is the mystery behind the obvious facts? There is always a mystery behind the so called obvious facts. What is the meaning? What is the why? These questions presuppose that human beings are not wholly determined in their actions by the external world. For the poet, as well as for the scientist or for the historian, or I should say the poet's vision of life is as complex as that of the historian or a scientist, because the poet too is solving for X. Robert Hayden: Another point, I think that any poet who is as interested in the past, in history as I am, knows that the present cannot be understood unless there is some comprehension of the past. I am the man I am today because I was the child I was or because I was never the child I might've been. The past is always present. These are some of the ideas that I think lie behind or that have determined my interest in this material. Now I want to begin by reading poems, which I hope will illustrate some of these points. Robert Hayden: I'm going to begin by reading the first poem in the history section of my selected poems, Middle Passage. And I've told over and over again the story of how this poem came into be. I'm a little tired of hearing myself talk about it really. But I became interested in writing about the African slave trade way back in the 40's. I think I was working at it in about 1940, '41. And it took me a good many years to work out a form for the poem. I read old diaries and ships logs and all kinds of things. I read first hand accounts of what slavery involved or what slaving involved and what conditions on slave ships were. And after I'd assembled all the, I can't say assemble, after I had gathered all the facts I needed, I still couldn't write the poem because a poem is not merely a matter of the intellect, it's also a matter of the heart, a matter of the feelings, the emotions. Robert Hayden: And I couldn't get started. There was nothing, I didn't feel anything. I had a lot of material gathered, but I had no real focal point for it. Well, apparently I found one. And there was the question of the form I was going to give the poem. And I tried various things, I should never forget that one morning at about 4:00 I got out of bed and I began to rework the poem in a new form that I had sort of hit upon. And it worked. And then I went on working and revising it for a good many years after that. So here now is Middle Passage. Robert Hayden: Jesus, Australia, Esperanza, Mercy. Sails flashing to the wind like weapons. Sharks, following the moans, the fever and the dying. Horror, the corposant and compass rose. Middle passage, voyage through death to life upon these shores. Tenth April, 1800. The Blacks rebellious, crews uneasy. Our linguist says their moaning is a prayer for death, ours and their own. Some try to starve themselves. Lost three this morning, leap with crazy laughter to the waking sharks. Sang as they went under. Desire, adventure, tarter, Ann. Standing to America, bringing home Black gold, Black ivory, Black seed. Deep in the festering hole my father lies, of his bones New England pews are made. Those are altar lights that were his eyes. Jesus, savior, pilot me. Over life's tempestuous sea. We pray that though will grant oh Lord safe passage to our vessels bringing heathen souls onto thy chastening. Jesus, savior. Robert Hayden: Eight bells, I cannot sleep for I am sick with fear. But writing eases fear a little, since still my eyes can see these words take shape upon the page. And so I write as one would turn to exorcism. Four days scudding, but now the sea is calm again. Misfortune follows in our wake, like sharks, our grinning tutelary guards. Which one of us has killed an albatross. A plague among our Blacks. Ophthalmia, blindness. And we have jettisoned the blind to no avail. It spreads, the terrifying sickness spreads. Its claws have scratched sight from the captains eyes and there is blindness in the fo’c’sle. And we must sail three weeks before we come to port. What port awaits us, Davy Jones’ or home? I've heard of slavers drifting, drifting, playthings of wind and storm and chance, their crews gone blind, the jungle hatred crawling up on deck. Thou who walked on Galilee. Deponent further sayeth The Bella J left the Guinea Coast with cargo of 500 Blacks and odd for the barracoons of Florida. But there was hardly room, two decks, for half the sweltering cattle stowed spoon fashioned there. That some went mad of thirst and tore their flesh and sucked the blood. Robert Hayden: That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins. That there was one they called The Guinea Rose and they cast lots and fought to lie with her. That when the Bo’s’n piped all hands, the flames spreading from starboard already were beyond control. The Negroes howling and their chains entangled with the flames, that the burning Blacks could not be reached. But the crew abandoned ship, leaving their shrieking Negresses behind, that the captain perished drunken with the wenches. Further deponent sayeth not, pilot oh pilot me. Robert Hayden: Part two. Aye, lad, and I have seen those factories, Gambia, Rio Pongo, Calabar. Have watched the artful mongos baiting traps of war, wherein the victor and the vanquished eere caught as prizes for our barracoons. Have seen the nigger kings, whose vanity and greed turned wild Black hides of Fellatah, Mandingo, Ibo, Kru to gold for us. And there was one, King Anthracite we named him, fetish face beneath French parasols of brass and orange velvet, impudent mouth whose cups were carven skulls of enemies. He'd honor us with drum and feast and conjo and palm-oil-glistening wenches deft in love. And for tin crowns that shone with paste, red calico and German-silver trinkets. Would have the drums talk war and send his warriors to burn the sleeping villages and kill the sick and old and lead the young in coffles to our factories. 20 years a trader, 20 years, for there was wealth aplenty to be harvested from those Black fields. And I'd be trading still but for the fevers melting down my bones. Robert Hayden: Part three. 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. Voyage through death, voyage whose chartings are unlove. A charnel stench, effluvium of living death spreads outward from the hold, where the living and the dead, the horribly dying, lie interlocked, lie foul with blood and excrement. Deep in the festering hold thy father lies, the corpse of mercy rots with him. Rats eat love's rotten gelid eyes. But, oh, the living look at you with human eyes whose suffering accuses you. Whose hatred reaches through the swill of dark to strike you like a leper's claw. You cannot stare that hatred down or chain the fear that stalks the watches and breathes on you its fetid scorching breath. Cannot kill the deep immortal human wish, the timeless will. Robert Hayden: But for the storm that flung up barriers of wind and wave, The Amistad, señores, would have reached the port of Principe in two, three days at most. But for the storm, we should have been prepared for what befell. Swift as the puma's leap it came. There was that interval of moonless calm filled only with the water's and the rigging's usual sounds. Then sudden movement, blows and snarling cries and they had fallen on us with machete and marlinspike. It was as though the very air, the night itself were striking us. Exhausted by the rigors of the storm, we were no match for them. Our men went down before the murderous Africans. Our loyal Celestino ran from below with gun and lantern. And I saw, before the cane-knife's wounding flash, Cinquez, that surly brute who calls himself a prince, directing, urging on the ghastly work. He hacked the poor mulatto down, and then he turned on me. The decks were slippery when daylight finally came. It sickens me to think of what I saw. Of how these apes threw overboard the butchered bodies of our men, true Christians all, like so much jetsam. Robert Hayden: Enough, enough. The rest is quickly told. Cinquez was forced to spare the two of us you see, to steer the ship to Africa. And we like phantoms doomed to rove the sea, voyaged east by day and west by night, deceiving them, hoping for rescue, prisoners on our own vessel. Till at length we drifted to the shores of this your land, America, where we were freed from our unspeakable misery. Now we demand, good sirs, the extradition of Cinquez and his accomplices to La Havana. And it distresses us to know there are so many here who seem inclined to justify the mutiny of these Blacks. We find it paradoxical indeed, that you whose wealth, whose tree of liberty are rooted in the labor of your slaves should suffer the august John Quincy Adams to speak with so much passion of the right of chattel slaves to kill their lawful masters. And with his Roman rhetoric weave a heroes garland for Cinquez. I tell you that we are determined to return to Cuba with our slaves and there see justice done. Cinquez—or let us say "the Prince’—Cinquez shall die.” The deep immortal human wish, the timeless will. Cinquez its deathless primaveral image, life that transfigures many lives. Voyage through death to life upon these shores. Robert Hayden: It's my experience the more I've grown writing poetry, the more I am aware of the fact that time gives a rye twist very often to the things I write. Recently, a man who called himself Cinquez, has associated himself or identified himself as a liberation fighter. Very different from the Cinquez I was writing about. And I don't know. It's kind of ironical. Robert Hayden: Second poem that I shall read is called Oh Daedalus, Fly Away Home. This poem was suggested by stories that descendants of slaves were telling in the Georgie Sea Islands back in the 40's. Back in about 1941 I think, the Federal Writer's Project or one of the Federal Projects, sent people to the Georgia Sea Islands to interview, I guess they weren't descendants of slaves, they were former slaves who were still alive at that time. And some of them told the story of the flying African. And about the time I became interested in that I think somebody else took it up and wrote an article that appeared in one of the magazines about the flying African. Robert Hayden: And the story is this, that there were African slaves who were brought to the plantations in Georgia, this is a Georgia Sea Island legend. And they had magical power. And very often would be seen to stand in the field and stretch out their arms and some of the narrators said that these conjurers would sometimes say something in one of the several African languages that were spoken on the plantations. And then simply rise in the air and fly back to Africa. At least three or four people who were interviewed for this particular volume tell this story. Robert Hayden: And as I said I first read about it in about 1940, '41 and I was actually fascinated by it. And immediately there came to my mind, I shouldn't say immediately because with my poetry that's never true. Eventually I guess, I saw a connection between that story and the story of Daedalus, the legend of Daedalus and Icarus. That in Greek mythology, Daedalus was brought to Crete by King Midas to build the Labyrinth in which the Minotaur, it wasn't King Midas, but in which the Minotaur was housed. And Daedalus became home sick for Athens. He was also being held in Crete against his will and he made two pairs of wings. One pair for himself and one pair for his son Icarus. And they started the return to Athens, or at least to Greece let's say. And Icarus flew too near the sun and the wax melted from the wings and he fell into the sea and was drowned. Robert Hayden: Well, what's the connection between the two? Well, they're both stories of homesickness and longing. And they are both legends or myths. So here is the poem which grew directly out of those old slave stories. And it's called Oh Daedalus, Fly Away Home. This poem has been danced by professional dancers and I will read it with the kind of rhythm it should have, the kind of rhythm I meant for it to have when I wrote it. Robert Hayden: O Daedalus, fly away home. Drifting night in the Georgia pines, coonskin drum and jubilee banjo. Pretty Malinda, dance with me. Night is juba, night is Congo. Pretty Malinda, dance with me. Night is an African juju man weaving a wish and a weariness together to make two wings. Oh fly away home fly away. Do you remember Africa? Oh cleave the air fly away home. My gran, he flew back to Africa, just spread his arms and flew away home. Drifting night in the windy pines. Night is a laughing, night is a longing. Pretty Malinda, come to me. Night is a mourning juju man, weaving a wish and a weariness together to make two wings. Oh fly away home fly away. Robert Hayden: Now we come to the poem Nat Turner, it's not the same Nat Turner that I wrote about in 1930. When I was in Virginia once, I wanted to go over the trail that Nat Turner and his men took when they marched from Jerusalem onto the plantations. But I couldn't do it and I wanted also to see the dismal swamp. So I had to content myself with the satisfaction of just being in that area where he once had been. Robert Hayden: As I say, I got a good deal of the material for this poem from things Nat Turner himself said. For example, he actually had a vision. He went into the dismal swamp and he stayed there for quite awhile, about a month I believe. And he had a vision of celestial beings engaged in warfare. And he told us, after he and his men had been captured, he told us in court. I think Nat Turner has always appealed to me, not because of the violence and the bloodshed, that I deplore no matter what the odds are. I just think there's just got to be a better way then killing other people. I just can't believe that there isn't some better way. So it's not the bloodshed that's ever appealed to me, but it's the fact that he was a mystic. Robert Hayden: As one who is concerned with the human dimension of our history, I sometimes deplore the fact that we tend to oversimplify everything. Nat Turner was a very complex character. And if you think of him simply as somebody who got an idea and the Lord told him to do something and the Lord might not or he might have. He went out and killed for the sake of killing. You completely misinterpret him. I don't know where I read some of the things that I now know about him because I spent, over the years off and on I must've read all kinds of things in addition to primary sources. I read one account that said that he was never known to smile. He was never known to laugh. You know of course he was a preacher and the other slaves were afraid of him. And they spoke of him as an old two headed man, conjure man. They thought he was an old two headed man. Robert Hayden: In a version of the poem I wrote a good many years ago, I use that. And I'm sorry, I like that phrase so much I'm going to use it in something else. But anyhow, he was strange. He was strange. He was scary. And he was a mystic. And when he went out and stayed in the swamp, which was a dreadful place from all standpoints and came back and lived for a long period in silence. And no one really knew what his plans were until he was ready to tell them. And he didn't really make a move until certain signs appeared in the sky and they actually did appear. There were, I've forgotten now exactly what it was, I'm sure I know but I can't remember now because I need the knowledge. But there were phenomena that there were celestial or astronomical phenomena that appeared. And he then went ahead and led his party. Robert Hayden: Well, the thing was for doomed and it failed, but it shook the slave holding cell. And now I must tell the other story. I don't think a poet is a poet unless he has had some kind of shaking, frightening psychic experience. And I've had several. And I guess I have to have several because I keep on wondering if I'm a poet at all. I mean most days I doubt it and wish I were really a poet, the kind of poet that I have in my mind. I suppose if I were that kind of poet I'd write one poem and then die. So maybe it's just as well I'm not. Robert Hayden: But I've had my strange experiences. And I had written, oh goodness I don't know why Nat Turner obsessed me so. I really can't tell you why he obsessed me so, except that it was all very dramatic and I think that the mysticism of the thing. I mean there's a gothic, there's a dark gothic quality in the whole situation that I think appeals to me. I wrote two or three versions and they never came to anything. I wrote one very long involved psychological version, that really was a dilly. But then when I got to working on the one that finally was published, I was teaching at Fisk and I had a study in the upstairs. It had once been an attic, but it was a wonderful study. Robert Hayden: And I worked on the poem, I was working on this very book, getting it ready for Brayman and Son. And I was trying to work this poem out. And I was all alone and I'd been alone before. And on this particular night, I really got into this poem. And as I was working on it, I had the most chilling sense of a presence standing behind my chair. And I absolutely dared not to look around. And I heard in my mind the words, "Tell the truth about me". And I was really shaken, I was really frightened. And the proof of the pudding, I had worked on that poem before in that very room alone, I had never given it a thought. But this particular night there was this sense of a presence. And I dared not look around. I dared not even leave the room, until finally the thing wore off and I got up and went downstairs. Robert Hayden: I didn't tell anybody about it for awhile and of course a few years ago everybody said, "Oh, ha ha ha, isn't that cute and isn't he silly?", and so on and so forth. But people ain't laughing like that no more because there are too many strange things happening. Yates used to say that whenever evil was present, he would get the smell of burning feathers. Well that's enough of that, but anyhow here is the poem, which finally came out of all that effort and fear. The Ballad of Nat Turner. And I follow in the poem pretty much what supposedly happened. Nat Turner is speaking to his followers. Robert Hayden: Then fled, O brethren, the wicked juba and wandered wandered far from curfew joys in the Dismal’s night. Fool of St. Elmo's fire. In scary night I wandered, praying, Lord God my harshener, speak to me now or let me die. Speak, Lord, to this mourner. And came at length to livid trees where Ibo warriors hung shadowless, turning in wind that moaned like Africa. Their bell tongue bodies dead, their eyes alive with the anger deep in my own heart. Is this the sign, the sign fore promised me? The spirits vanished. Robert Hayden: Afraid and lonely I wandered on in Blackness. Speak to me now or let me die. Die, whispered the Blackness. And wild things gasped and scuffled in the night. Seething shapes of evil frolicked upon the air. I reeled with fear, I prayed. Sudden brightness clove the preying darkness, brightness that was itself a golden darkness, brightness so bright that it was darkness. And there were angels, their faces hidden from me. Angels at war with one another, angels in dazzling combat. And the splendor, the fearful splendor of that warring. Hide me, I cried to rock and bramble. Hide me, the rock, the bramble cried. How tell you of that holy battle? Robert Hayden: The shock of wing on wing and sword on sword was the tumult of a taken city burning. I cannot say how long they strove, for the wheel in a turning wheel which is time in eternity had ceased its whirling. And owl and moccasin panther and nameless beast and I were held like creatures fixed in flaming, in fiery amber. But I saw, I saw oh many of those mighty beings waver, waver and fall. Go streaking down into swamp water. And the water hissed and steamed and bubbled and locked shuddering, shuddering over the fallen and soon was motionless. Robert Hayden: Then that massive light began a-folding in upon itself, and I Beheld the conqueror faces and, lo, they were like mine. I saw they were like mine and in joy and terror wept, praising praising Jehovah. Oh praised my honer, harshener till a sleep came over me, a sleep heavy as death. And when I awoke at last free and purified, I rose and prayed and returned after a time to the blazing fields, to the humbleness. And bided my time. Robert Hayden: Now, we come to another poem in this series which is about Harriet Tubman. I know why I have been fascinated by Harriet Tubman all these years. I once wrote a play about her, probably the worst play that was ever produced in the anales of the amateur theater. But the intentions were good. I might say one of the great moments in that play was, when was it done? Oh good heavens it was done back in the 30's some time. One of the great moments in that play, which was just as bad as it could be, except it had its moments. I'm sort of fond of it, I look back on it, I'm sort of fond of it because things that I didn't know how to do then, I guess I learned a little later on how to do. And I've always loved the theater and dramatic things, dramatic people as well as dramatic situations. Robert Hayden: And there was a great moment when the 54th Massachusetts soldiers marched out on the stage. The Detroit American Legion post volunteered to act as the Civil War soldiers. This was the Colonel Young post, volunteered to act as the soldiers. And we got authentic Civil War costumes and so on and there was a great moment when Harriet Tubman, as the Civil War spy and so on, swept onto the stage. And then soon in marched the 54th, or parts of a company of the 54th Massachusetts. Well it brought the house down, as well it might because how often had you seen such a thing? Robert Hayden: Well anyway, that was really a bad play. And I couldn't do anything to redeem it. I think the last time it was ever performed in Detroit, the man who was playing the part of John Brown decided that he wasn't going out on the stage. The production was so bad that just wasn't going out. So, I jumped out and was John Brown. Awful. Now the first production I was in, we didn't have all the soldiers the last time around. But still, Harriet Tubman herself continued to fascinate me. And the Civil War period, I found and find fascinating, though I've about come to the end of it now I think. And I've gone onto something else. Robert Hayden: I finally wrote a poem about her and the underground railroad that grew partly out of my researches or my reading let us say, I don't want to make it sound so heavy, grew apart out of my reading books about her. And partly out of some research I did on the underground railroad in Michigan for the Writer's Project back in the 30's. I wrote this poem and it was published in an anthology, or part of it was published in an anthology. And I decided it wasn't any good and I decided that I just didn't want to work on it, it was a dud and it would never be any good. Then [Rosie Poole], who edited Beyond the Blue, she was a Dutch woman who was early as the 1920's was interested in Afro-American poetry. And as a matter of fact got her PhD I think in Afro-American poetry or Afro-American literature. So that long before it was fashionable, Rosie was working at it. Robert Hayden: And she knew who was doing what in the United States. And she came across Runagate somewhere and she published it in an anthology that appeared only in London. And I didn't know that it had been picked up. Now of course they'd get into trouble, but then people were always picking up things of mine and I didn't know it. And they'd tell me, "Oh yes, that appeared in such and such a thing". Now of course you see Live Right Hardcore Brace October Health Law would be on their necks and thank the Lord for that. It only took me 30 years to write at that point, but I'm there now. Robert Hayden: However, as I said I had laid the poem aside. And Rosie came to Fisk and gave a reading of work by Afro-American poets. And I was in the audience and she said, "Now I want to read a poem by Robert Hayden", and so on. And she launched into Runagate. And I sat there astounded because I couldn't believe the poem could sound that way, that it was really worth saving. So when she got through reading it I went up to her and I said, "Rosie, I'm amazed. I thought that poem was a complete dud". And she reassured me, she was like, "Well it certainly is not that". Robert Hayden: And I went home and had a hard time finding the manuscripts because I'd just about decided to tear it up. And so I found it and then I began to work on it. And I revised it from the version that Rosie read. And this too entailed a fair amount of reading. I read books about slavery and books about the underground railroad. I might say, going back to the Nat Turner poem for a moment though, that some of the details in that poem were imagined of course. All that about what was going on in the swamp and so on. I mean I didn't read that anywhere. It's not hard to imagine if that kind of thing would go on. Robert Hayden: Well I think that's enough. Now I have to take a deep breath because again this poem is consciously written, the first part of it, is consciously written so that it has to be read a certain way because the rhythm is part of the meaning. I think I can do it. Pardon me. Runagate, Runagate, part one. Robert Hayden: 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. And when shall I reach that somewhere morning and keep on going and never turn back and keep on going? Runagate. Runagate. Runagate. Many thousands rise and go, many thousands crossing over. Oh mythic North, Oh star-shaped yonder Bible city. Some go weeping and some rejoicing. Some in coffins and some in carriages. Some in silks and some in shackles. Rise and go or fare you well. No more auction block for me. No more driver's lash for me. Robert Hayden: If you see my Pompey, 30 yrs of age, new breeches, plain stockings, negro shoes. If you see my Anna, likely young mulatto branded E on the right cheek, R on the left. Catch them if you can and notify subscriber. Catch them if you can, but it won't be easy. They'll dart underground when you try to catch them. Plunge into quicksand, whirlpools, mazes, turn into scorpions when you try to catch them. And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave. North star and bonanza gold, I'm bound for the freedom, freedom-bound and oh Susyanna don't you cry for me. Runagate. Runagate. Robert Hayden: Part two. Rises from their anguish and their power, Harriet Tubman. Woman of earth, whip scarred, a summoning, a shining. Mean to be free. And this was the way of it, brethren brethren, way we journeyed from can't to can. Moon so bright and no place to hide. The cry up and the patterollers riding, hound dogs belling in bladed air. And fear starts a-murbling, never make it, we'll never make it. Hush that now. And she's turned upon us, leveled pistol glinting in the moonlight. Dead folks can't jaybird-talk, she says. You keep on going now or die, she says. Robert Hayden: Wanted, Harriet Tubman, alias The General, alias Moses. Stealer of Slaves. In league with Garrison, Alcott, Emerson, Garrett, Douglas, Thoreau, John Brown. Armed and known to be dangerous. Wanted. Reward. Dead or Alive. Tell me, Ezekiel, oh tell me do you see mailed Jehovah coming to deliver me? Hoot-owl calling in the ghosted air, five times calling to the hants in the air. Shadow of a face in the scary leaves, shadow of a voice in the talking leaves. Come ride-a my train. Oh that train, ghost-story train. Through swamp and savanna movering movering, over trestles of dew, through caves of the wish. Midnight Special on a sabre track, movering movering. First stop mercy and the last Hallelujah. Come ride-a my train, mean mean mean to be free. Robert Hayden: Now, we move from that period to the Civil War. And I think a couple more poems, then we will have done. Someone reminded me two people are working on dissertations involving my poetry. And I had to be in New York for a conference and the young man reminded me that one of my sources was, oh dear, Harriet Martin's journal. You know the book, Darwin. Harriet Martin's journal of, no Fannie Kimbel, that's right. Fannie Kimbel's journal dealing with her visit to a southern plantation. Well when I was working on these other poems because I had projected, I had today we project, in those days we planned. I had planned a book dealing with Afro-American history. And it was going to go from the beginning, it was going to begin with the slave trade and end with the Civil War. Robert Hayden: And too many things as has been suggested by my friend who introduced me, too many things intervened so I never really got it done. But, I read accounts about slavery and about the Civil War. And in Fannie Kimbel's book I came across the name Sinda. Sinda was a slave woman on a plantation, she didn't do anything but her name was Sinda. And this struck Fannie Kimbel, who hated slavery of course, she was an English woman who became an actress. And she was all kinds of things, as you know. And that name stayed with me and it got into this poem. Robert Hayden: I did read some letters written by soldiers. Today those things are readily available, but in the 40's when I was working and the 50's too for that matter, when I was working on this particular poem, those things were not readily available. And I'd forgotten nearly where I'd read some of the things that I used in this poem. Now the poem is called The Dream and it has in parentheses the date 1863 because that was the year that Afro-American troops were used by the federal, or used in the federal army. And at one time this poem was not a single poem, but it was actually two different poems. And I put the two of them together and it worked out better then it had ever worked out before as a single poem. Robert Hayden: I don't think there's, oh. We had a very interesting discussion about the use of language, which some poets, the kinds of attitudes towards language that some poets have today. Well I was interested in trying to suggest something about the writer of the letter in this poem, without being obvious, without having to come out flat footed and say it. I wondered how would a young Afro-American soldier express himself in a letter? I had to decide where he might've come from, how did he get into the army? I don't go into this into the point, but I think the poem, if it has any strength, has a certain amount of strength because I thought all this out before I really got it worked. It presented technical problems. I had to figure out who is this man who's writing the letter, where does he come from? What kind of English is he going to use? How's he going to write? Is he dictating the letter to somebody who knows how to write and is writing the letter for him? Robert Hayden: And I decided no, none of that. John Copeland, who was in the Harpers Ferry raid with John Brown, William Copeland, who was in the Harper's Ferry raid with John Brown, had gone to Oberlin for awhile. So, I figured that the man who writes the letter in this poem had probably had some schooling. He had gone maybe to Oberlin, maybe he was a freshman there. Or he had schooling somewhere, perhaps in the north. I thought of him as perhaps being educated in Ohio or at one of the schools in that system. And yes he could spell pretty well. Since he's writing a letter, I didn't want to use dialect. That would be too easy and it also would not be, really wouldn't be logical. Robert Hayden: So what was I to do? I think I solved it by having him express himself pretty well. He misspells words, he may spell the worst must, M-U-S-T, and then in another place he'll spell it M-U-S-S. And he spells colonel the way you'd expect it to be spelled, K-E-R-N-E-L, what else? Whoever heard of C-O-L-O-N-E-L? It's pronounced colonel. Any fool knows that a home is pronounced Hume, that you know. So the secretary Home I really secretary Hume. But anyway, to get back to the point. There had to be certain inconsistencies. Robert Hayden: Well I'm getting too involved in that and I didn't mean to. But I did try to figure out something about this man. And I did base the conclusion that I came to rather largely, or pretty largely, on things I had read about the period. And later on I met a descendant of Copeland. And I didn't have a thing to do with it, but it's kind of interesting. Well here is The Dream. Now two actions are going on here. An old slave woman is waiting to see the Black troops. And somewhere unbeknownst to her in another part of the south, a man is writing a letter home. Some critics have pointed out, one critic in particular, called it a very sentimental poem because here is the old mother who is dying and there's a son writing a letter to her. And if I took time to answer such foolishness, I would've said to him, "Mister, they don't have anything to do with each other. That's the whole point", or one of the points. Here is The Dream. Robert Hayden: That evening Sinda thought she heard the drums and hobbled from her cabin to the yard. Robert Hayden: I'm sorry I have to start over again, that's so flat and so completely out of the rhythm of the thing. I've done quite a bit of reading. And some of these poems are sort of hard to read. I probably read too much, shall I stop? Not until I've earned my money, huh? All right now I think I can do it. The Dream, 1863. Robert Hayden: That evening Sinda thought she heard the drums and hobbled from her cabin to the yard. The quarters now were lonely still in willow dusk after the morning's ragged jubilo. When laughing, crying, singing, the folks went off with Marse Lincum's soldier boys. But Sinda hiding would not follow them. Those buckras with their ornery funning, cussed commands. Oh they were not the hosts the dreams had promised her. And hope when these few lines reaches your hand, they will find you well. I am tired some, but it is war you know. And ole Jeff Davis must be catched and hung to a sour apple tree, like it says in the song. I seen some action, but that is what I listed for, not to see the sights. Ha ha. More of our peoples coming everyday. The colonel calls them country bans and has them work around the camp and learning to be soldiers. How is the weather home? It's warm this evening, but there has been lots of rain. Robert Hayden: How many times that dream had come to her, more vision then a dream. The great big soldiers marching out of gun burst. Their faces those of Cal and Joe and Charlie, sold to the rice fields. Oh sold away a many and a many, a long year ago. Fevered, gasping, Sinda listened. Knew this was the ending of her dream. And prayed that death, grown fretful and impatient, nagging her, would wait a little longer, would let her see. And we been marching, sleeping too, in cold rain and mirey mud a heap of times. Tell mama thanks for the Bible and not worry so. Did brother fix the roof yet like he promised? This must've been a real nice place before the righting uglied it all up. The Judas trees is blossomed out so pretty. Same as if this hurt and trouble wasn't going on. Almost like something you might dream about. I take it for a sign the Lord remembers us. There's talk we will be moving into battle very soon again. Robert Hayden: Trembling, tottering, help me Jesus. Sinda crossed the wavering yard. Reached a redbud tree in bloom. Could go no farther. Clung to the bowl and clinging fell to her knees. She tried to stand, could not so much as lift her head. Tried to hold the bannering sounds. Heard only the whippoorwills in tenuous moonlight. Struggled to rise and make her way to the road to welcome Joe and Cal and Charlie. Fought with brittle strength to rise. So pray for me that if the bullet with my name wrote on it get me, it will not get me in retreat. I do not think them kind of thoughts so much. No need in dying until you die I always figure. Course if the hardtack and the bully beef do not kill me, nothing can I guess. Tell Joe I have sure seen me some feisty gals down here in Dixieland. And I might just go ahead and jump over the broomstick with one and bring her home. Well I must close, with love to all and hope to see you soon. Yours, Cal. Robert Hayden: One thing I didn't tell you and it makes it sometimes it makes it a little difficult to read, the punctuation you see is sporadic and erratic. And the capitalization, all the things that I would've thought that a person who had some training but not all he needed. Also I've looked through some of the freshmen composition papers, I kind of knew what I was talking about. Robert Hayden: Before I close, I want to read one poem that comes sort of out of family history. Joe Finn was not his name really, that's the name of my grandfather. But there was somebody on my mother's side who fought in the Civil War. My mother and her family came from Pennsylvania. And the men of the family were kind of notorious for going off in the mountains. And there's an illusion here to the crater. You will remember that the Crater outside Petersburg, Virginia was the scene of a very bloody battle, in which Afro-American troops took part. This is from a section of poems that was published in a magazine. It's called Beginnings and this is the second poem in the series. Robert Hayden: A shot gun on his shoulder. His woman big with child and shrieking curses after him. Joe Finn came down from Alleghany wilderness to join Abe Lincoln's men. God damning it, survives the slaughter at the Crater. Disappears into his name. Robert Hayden: Now I want to close with the poem Frederick Douglass, which has been, oh my goodness I wrote it so long ago. It's all around. It's kind of, it's getting to be kind of a sad poem for me because, well largely because it sort of surfaced when Martin Luther King was killed. I was in Teaneck, New Jersey that evening to give a poetry reading for the Teaneck [inaudible] community there. And I was asked if I would rush over to the auditorium where a tribute or a memorial service was being held for Martin Luther King. And read the poem. And I did. It was a sad, sad occasion certainly as you can well imagine. I had met Martin Luther King. Robert Hayden: I'm afraid I wrote a prophetic poem about him, that ends with the lines, see I can't remember. Now that I've gotten into this, I can't get out of it. I have to go on with it now, sorry I started it really. I who love you tell you this, even as the pitiful killer waits for me. I wrote that before he was killed. Anyway, then afterwards a film was made and I think Frederick Douglass is recited in the film. I was a little mad about that because nobody told me. But then afterwards I felt, well I really don't care. I'm glad that, since it was for him, it's all right. Robert Hayden: Now, getting out of all that. You see, poets don't play. I mean it comes out of your life. I mean everything I do, I mean when I write books may help me to get words and all together. But almost everything I write comes out of my life, something I've felt or found out about or something. And maybe that's why people pay some attention to it. I don't know. I read of course, Frederick Douglass was going to be part of a series of sonnets. And for awhile it was part of a series, but it was the only good poem in the series. And so I've dropped everything else. I wrote one poem on Elijah P. Lovejoy, the abolitionist who was killed in Illinois because of his uncompromising stand as an anti slavery man. And I had one on Sojourner Truth and so on. Robert Hayden: But the only one that lasted was Frederick Douglass. And I had read Charles Waddell Chestnut's book on Douglas. And I had also read of course most if not all, or at least one version of Douglas's biography, autobiography. But here is the poem, Frederick Douglass. Robert Hayden: When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth. When it belongs at last to all, when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, reflex action. When it is finally won. When it is more than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians. This man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world where none is lonely, none hunted. Alien, this man, superb in love and logic, this man shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues' rhetoric, not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone. But with the lives grown out of his life, the lives fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing. Robert Hayden: Thank you.