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to African American history and his The Place of own experience from living in the Poetry in Religion segregated South. Similarly, one of his most repeated themes deals with the and Society: sense of being an alien in his native land. And that sense of alienation An Interview rankled most when it came from of Robert E. those who criticized him for not being sufficiently polemical after the rise Hayden with of the Black Power movement in the 1960s. Douglas Ruhe In his earlier years when he was a professor at Fisk University Introduction by JOHN S. HATCHER in Nashville, Tennessee, few on campus paid much attention to his The life of Robert E. Hayden (1913- accomplishments, until he was hired 1980) was replete with ironies, some away from Fisk by the University of propitious, some cruel, but ultimately Michigan after he won the Grand Prize he emerged victorious. A few weeks for Poetry at the First World Festival before his death, the Department of of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in African and American Studies at the 1966. A decade later, after honorary University of Michigan paid tribute to doctorates and rapidly increasing him and his work, and after the vilifi- notoriety, he was appointed in 1975 to cation he had endured from those who serve two terms as the Poet Laureate felt he was not sufficiently passionate of the United States, the first black or vitriolic in his poems about race, poet to receive this honor. this honor had an incredibly powerful The interview that follows took meaning for him. place at the National Bahá’í Center in Hayden was born in a ghetto of 1975 just after Hayden’s appointment Detroit, studied at the University as poet laureate, and it thus reflects of Michigan under W. H. Auden, the energy, ebullience, and wonder- and became a Bahá’í in 1942. But ful humor of Hayden in his prime as Hayden rejected the notion of poet and at the mere beginnings of being considered what he called a the national and international recog- “hyphenated poet,” either a “black- nition that would follow. Ironically, poet” or a “Bahá’í-poet”; he wanted his though, his reputation would ascend art to stand on its own merits and not most powerfully belatedly after he be “ghettoized,” as he put it. Ironically, died from cancer five years later. He is many of his best-known poems—such now considered among the first rank as “Middle Passage”—allude powerfully of American poets of the twentieth

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century, and his work is anthologized not be confused with an advoca- in virtually every major collection of cy of complete license; it was the American literature. expression of Hayden’s belief During the course of this informa- that we must not let “monsters of tive and delightful conversation, we abstraction/police and threaten are allowed to sense some of Hayden’s us,” but strive for an atmosphere views about the art of poetry in gen- where “godliness/ is possible and eral and, more particularly, about what man/ is . . . / permitted to be he believed to be the intimate relation- man” (Hatcher, From the Auroral ship between poetry and the revealed Darkness 74). word of the Manifestations. We are also touched by his wonderful wit, and THE INTERVIEW we are surprised by his candid assess- ment of what he felt to be the decline RUHE: I think I would like to start in the quality of much contemporary with a question about the future of confessional poetry, a great deal of poetry. What will the future of poet- which he considered self-indulgent ry in America be? What will the third and little related to loftier concerns century bring? Maybe you could talk regarding global peace and freedom about that in two parts: the content of and dignity for all the peoples of the the poetry, and then the themes and world—cardinal themes of his beloved techniques. Bahá’í Faith. Still, it is only by turning HAYDEN: The best way to begin is to the superb poetry of Hayden that by saying that it’s hard to predict, but one can, in the long run, come to ap- it seems to me that there is a great va- prehend the enduring contribution riety in poetry today, and I think that he made to the art of poetry and to variety will continue. I think there will understand the extent to which those be many diverse voices in American values underlie his perspective as an poetry in the next century. Today we artist and as a Bahá’í. have all sorts of forms, although, on the whole, there seems to be a reaction Hayden’s stand as enunciated against formally constructed poetry in his statements on poetic, then, and there is a lot of interest in open was in no way a denial of his racial forms. Perhaps, as the century goes on identity or a denial of his belief there will be more interesting forms, as a Bahá’í—it was a courageous and even new forms may emerge. I and forceful statement of the bare think that even film, cinema, and TV requisites for good poetry and a may somehow influence the direction caution against those who would poetry takes, may influence the form dictate what the artist must say of it. I can imagine poems used with or how he should say it. It should films

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As far as content is concerned, individual life. Not so many poets are I think American poets will go on trying to write some kind of epical writing about life as it is lived here poem or make some universal state- in the United States, and coping ment. Our contemporary lives almost with the special experiences that are don’t permit that. characteristic of us. Beyond that I One of the things we have to strug- really can’t say too much. I think gle against in this society is anonym- that if we remain a free people, if the ity, not only in America but in the individual continues to be allowed his world. The computer, the insistence freedom and we don’t have some kind on conformity, and the threat of reg- of regimentation, if we don’t have imentation—all these make it difficult groups that rise and gain control over to maintain individuality. us, then poets will be allowed diversity I realize that there is a great deal and all kinds of new forms. Because of poetry today that is rather trivial in there are experiments being made in content. “I want to cross the street . . . this century that will carry over time Wow!” And my feeling is, “After you in the arts, as well as in the sciences, I did that, so what?” But the positive as- think that in the future there will be pect of it is that poets are celebrants the same kind of diversity. of the individual, and many of us feel that the day-to-day lives of people, the RUHE: What about the content of happenings—the things that we have poetry? To be more specific, I’ve to do in the course of a day in order to observed in my own reading of just survive physically—these things poetry that many of the themes of are important and have their place. contemporary poetry are what I It’s not just the great moments would call fragmented, or they deal when you have a profound feeling, with chaos and they reflect chaos, in when you fall deeply in love, or when a sense. It’s hard to get a coherent you hear great music. It’s not only the idea. In other words, our lives are great moments that are important. consecutive, but these poems don’t Everything is important! But, unfor- seem to be consecutive. tunately, the tendency sometimes is to get bogged down in petty details, to HAYDEN: One reason for that, I get bogged down in trivia and not see think—and I don’t mean that it’s nec- anything beyond that. essarily a good thing—is that poets Now, of course, one reason for of this century—and I myself feel the fragmentation—in the other arts this very strongly—have wanted to as well as in poetry—is the fact that get away from the grandiose and from there is no strong transcendent be- the didactic. There has been a grow- lief in anything. We all know that the ing concern with the nature of the “religious impulse”—to use a kind of

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academic term—is still very much HAYDEN: It’s easy for me to talk alive, it is but thwarted and misdirect- about everybody else’s work. I could ed. In fact, a good many artist feel that give you a great lecture about W. H. life doesn’t have too much meaning, Auden at the drop of a hat. It’s hard that it is a physical thing and, like all for me to talk about my own work. But physical things, it has an ending; and I suppose I am of my times. I’m rather that if it has a purpose, what is it? like Robert Frost—I feel like I have a Well, you can’t know the purpose lover’s quarrel with the world. I don’t of life—or the purpose of anything— hate the world I live in, but there are without some sense of transcendence, some things about it I really deplore, some kind of spiritual vision. It’s and there are some things about it I impossible to know. For example, I find downright frightening. think that a poet like Whitman had a I am a realist about most things and tremendous cosmic vision. And while certainly about political, social, and Whitman did not align himself with moral questions. I am responding to some particular church or some par- the world around me, and I have been ticular religion, he possessed what I trying to find new forms. I have been call a “God consciousness.” trying to work toward something new He was, of course, pantheistic. (that really won’t be new: I can’t say He saw God in all things. And while that it is a brand new form that has I do happen not to believe in that, I never been used before); I have been can understand it. This belief gave trying to get away from conventional force and vitality to a great deal of forms or use them in some way that is Whitman’s poetry. Even for people distinctly my own. who are not religious, who are not inclined to think that there is a religious At one time I really didn’t know or spiritual dimension to reality, there what my subject matter was. It has is still humanism. Because if you love been wisely said that a poet does not humanity and are working for the good choose his subject; his subject chooses of humanity, this ideal will empower him. And I’ve been fortunate in that you. But there isn’t even this minimal some rather important subjects have sort of transcendent underpinning in chosen me. I have sort of a sense of the work of many people. what it is I ought to be doing. I seem to be concerned, like all RUHE: How does this lack of tran- writers who are really dedicated writ- scendence relate to your own poetry? ers, with the struggle between good What directions are you taking now and evil. I guess it comes down to that. and will you be taking in the coming In my poems there are often references years, and how do they depart from to darkness and light. I have become or build on what you have done in the conscious of that and now I try not past? to use those symbols quite so much

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because I think I tend to overdo it. But I suppose I would have to fall back I suppose in the work of most serious on what has become a formula for me, poets, the great theme is the struggle and that is Dylan Thomas’ statement between good and evil, a concern with that he is a poet who is seeking to hon- good and evil, but not in any narrow, or men and praise God. That, too, is moralistic sense. what it comes down to for me, and I And this brings me to another suppose it is very similar to what is point: I think that all art—if it does stated in the Bahá’í Writings about the reflect human values, even in a nega- role of the artist. tive way sometimes—is religious and has spiritual impact, because it comes RUHE: What about the destiny of from the inside; it wells up from the America as a theme, and particularly psyche. beginning the third century of Amer- I really don’t know how to talk ican history? Is this a worthy theme about my own work other than in for poets to explore? And how does it these terms. I think that when you are fit with the destiny of mankind as a really good about the work you’re do- whole? ing, and you can rattle it off, then your audience should be suspicious of you, HAYDEN: It’s certainly a worthy because that’s not the kind of thing theme, but you’d be surprised at the poetry, or any art form, is. You don’t number of poets who really don’t want go about it in some deliberate way. Ed- to write on that theme. They fear the gar Allen Poe, in discussing the way flag waiver, the jingoist in our midst, he wrote “The Raven” says things like, the people who believe in “our country, “I got this effect when I did this, and right or wrong.” The politicians, the this effect when I did that.” But he is rhetoricians have discouraged serious talking through his hat. I am sure Poe poets from writing about America. didn’t go about his poetry that way. I I have written a poem, which I call have said, rather nastily, that if that’s my bicentennial poem, and it is not the way he wrote “The Raven,” then mindless or overweening or overbear- no wonder it is no better than it is. ing praise for America. At the same This doesn’t mean to say—as I am time it is not a condemnation or a vi- careful to point out to my students— cious satire. I started writing a satir- that the poet is some kind of brainless ical poem about the bicentennial, but child who is just playing with words I never could do it. My heart was not and who might arrive at something, in it because that is not the way I feel hit or miss. We all have a deep sense, about America. if we are any good, of what the art I think that many American po- involves and how impossible it is for ets have a very positive vision of the any of us to achieve perfection. country. Some of my friends who are

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poets have a rather deep feeling about fifteen American poets who were not America. I know that Michael Harp- ostensibly writing about America, you er does. He is one of our outstanding would find that the work they do, in poets, one of our best. But this patri- the final analysis, would be some sort otism is qualified or modified by an of commentary on the quality of life awareness of all the dreadful things in America. that we permit to go on. It is very dif- [In Hayden’s last volume “American Jour- ficult for poets on the whole. nal,” he writes a poem about his perspec- It is always rather difficult to write tive on America from the point of view of about America because America is so an alien visitor taking notes in a journal, many different things. We are not a much as an anthropologist might do. We unified people, although many would include it here]: agree on something called the “Ameri- can dream,” as I say in this poem, and, AMERICAN JOURNAL1 at least on paper, we recognize the sanctity of the individual, and we do here among them the americans believe in individual rights and so on. this baffling multi people extremes But I cannot imagine any poet writing and variegations their a poem—no matter how much good- noise restlessness their almost will he felt—about freedom and the frightening energy how best sacredness of the individual without describe these aliens in my being aware of all the things that reports to The Counselors stand in the way of the realization of these ideals. disguise myself in order to study them I could not do it when I was writ- unobserved adapting their varied ing my poem; there is no way that I pigmentations white black could ignore it. But I hope that we will red brown yellow the imprecise and always be able to dissent and to keep strangering distinctions by which this lovers’ quarrel with America go- they live by which they ing, because—to paraphrase the para- justify their cruelties to one another phrase that I just made—that is what charming savages enlightened it comes down to. We poets have this primitives brash new comers lovers’ quarrel with America: we love lately sprung up in our galaxy how it; we want it to do better; we don’t want the bad guys always to have con- 1 American Journal, pp. 57-60. Reprinted trol over the good guys. from American Journal: Poems by Robert Increasingly, as America goes on, Hayden. Copyright © 1982 by Irma Hayden. poets are going to reflect in various Copyright © 1978 by Robert Hayden. With ways the state of things. Today, if you permission of the publisher, Liveright were to read the work of, say, ten or Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

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describe them do they indeed know to double talk our way around and what or who they are do not seem its okay the dreams okay and means to yet no other beings whats good could be a damn sight in the universe make more extravagant better means every body in the good claims old u s a should have the chance to for their importance and identity get ahead or at least should have three squares a day as for myself i do like us they have created a veritable okay not crying hunger with a loaf populace of machines that serve and of bread tucked under my arm you soothe and pamper and entertain understand i we have seen their flags and foot fear one does not clearly follow i prints on the moon also the intricate replied notice you got a funny accent rubbish left behind a wastefully pal like where you from he asked ingenious people many it appears far from here i mumbled worship the Unknowable Essence he stared hard i left the same for them as for us but are more faithful to their machine made must be more careful item learn gods to use okay technologists their shamans their pass word okay crowds gathering in the streets today oceans deserts mountains grain fields for some reason obscure to me canyons forests variousness of noise and violent motion repulsive landscapes weathers sun light moon physical contact sentinels pigs light as at home much here is i heard them called with flailing clubs beautiful dream like vistas reminding rage and bleeding and frenzy and me of home item have seen the screaming machines rock place known wailing unbearable decibels i fled as garden of the gods and sacred to lest vibrations of the brutal scene do the first indigenes red monoliths further harm of home despite the tensions to my metabolism already over taxed i breath in i am attracted to the vigorous americans disturbing The Counselors would never permit sensuous appeal of so many never such barbarous confusion they to be admitted know what is best for our sereni ty we are an ancient race and have something they call the american outgrown illusions cherished here dream sure we still believe in it i item their vaunted liberty no guess an earth man in the tavern body pushes me around i have heard said irregardless of the some them say land of the free they sing times night mare facts we always try what do they fear mistrust betray

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more than the freedom they boast impeccable as indeed The of in their ignorant pride have seen Counselors are aware some thing the squalid ghettoes in their violent eludes me some constant amid the cities paradox on paradox how variables defies analysis and imitation have the americans will i be judged managed to survive incompetent

parades fireworks displays video america as much a problem in spectacles much grandiloquence metaphysics as it is a nation earthly much buying and selling they are entity an iota in our galaxy an celebrating their history earth men organism that changes even as i in antique uniforms play at the carnage examine it fact and fantasy never whereby the americans achieved twice the identity we too recall same so many variables that struggle as enterprise of suffering and faith uniquely theirs blonde exert greater caution twice have miss teen age america waving from aroused suspicion returned to a red white and blue flower float as the ship until rumors of humanoids the goddess of liberty a divided from outer space so their scoff people seeking reassurance from a ing media voices termed us had past few under been laughed away my crew and i stand and many scorn why should laughed too of course we sanction old hypocrisies thus dissenters The Counselors would confess i am curiously drawn silence them a decadent people The unmentionable to the americans Counselors believe i do not find doubt i could exist among them for them decadent a refutation not long however psychic demands far permitted me but for all their too severe much violence much knowledge power and inventiveness that repels i am attracted not yet more than raw none the less their variousness their crude neophytes like earthlings ingenuity their elan vital and that everywhere some thing essence quiddity i cannot penetrate or name though i have easily passed for an american in bankers grey afro and dashiki long hair and jeans hard hat yarmulka mini skirt describe RUHE: Who would you identify as in some detail for the amusement of some of the poets in America who are The Counselors and pointing in new directions that you though my skill in mimicry is consider to be significant?

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HAYDEN: It is difficult to say. There certain amount of flexibility and does is a whole school of poets who write in not depend so much on the old tech- the open forms. There are some very niques, the old devices. avant-garde poets, whose work I don’t There are a lot of young poets know too well, who are interested in whose work is appearing in the creating a kind of oral poetry that quarterlies and the poetry papers isn’t written down, that is recited. I and who are making all sorts of suppose, unless it is recorded, it just experiments with words and forms, disappears. but nothing has really gelled; nothing I would say that there are so many is yet really fixed. good poets who seem to be pointing Speaking of new movements in a new direction. I think of some and experiments that have been African American poets—and I think characteristic of this century, this has of them first of all because we have for been a century of almost ceaseless so long identified with one particular experimentation and trying new kind of writing, and we have been forms. However, we won’t really find considered as more sociologist than new forms, and we won’t really get a artists—but I would refer to a poet poetry profoundly new and original like Michael Harper, who teaches at until we get new concepts. Brown; Jay Wright, who teaches at The whole inner landscape, the Yale; David Henderson, who is on the spiritual domain, has to change before Coast; Norman Loftis, and Herbert there can be any outer change. It may Martin. sound like one of those things you just But this gets to be very dangerous say, but it is true for artists, and I think because your friends will say, “Aha, you we lose sight of that sometimes. We didn’t mention me!” But I mentioned think that, somehow, the arts spring mostly poets who are my friends. I out of the brow of Jove, but they don’t! think that what is new in their work If you carry this absurd figurative is a new attitude about what it means image forward, they spring out of the to be African American and that theirs brows of brand new concepts. New is a concern with poetry as an art and spiritual orientation brings about new not with poetry as a weapon. forms, gives a new impetus to the arts. Some other poets, who happen In some senses, we have a developing, not to be African American, and are an emerging sense of something new pointing in a new direction, would be and grand in the realm of the spirit, William Meredith, James Wright, and and you can see shadows of it in the Lisel Mueller. What is new in all these work that is done today, and I guess poets is a new attitude toward life, an it will be blazing forth in the next attempt to write a poetry that has a century. Hopefully!

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AND ALL THE ATOMS CRY ALOUD2 “I was but a man “like others, asleep upon I bear Him witness now My couch, when, lo, the breezes of the Who by the light of suns beyond the All-Glorious sun beyond were wafted over Me. . . .” the sun with shrill pen Called, as in dead of night revealed renewal of a dreamer is roused to help the helpless the covenant of timelessness with flee time, proclaimed a burning house. advent of splendor joy I bear Him witness now: alone can comprehend toward Him our history in its and the imperious evils of an age disastrous quest could not for meaning is impelled. withstand and stars RUHE: Earlier you were talking about and stones and seas groups of poets and pressure on poets acclaimed—His life its crystal image to conform in certain ways. Recent- and ly you were elected to the American magnetic field. Academy of Poets and you mentioned that it was totally unexpected, that I bear Him witness now— you felt you would probably go to mystery Whose major clues are the your grave without any recognition heart of man, of this kind. And now you have been the mystery of God: appointed consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (Poet Laureate Bahá’u’lláh: of America). What will your role be Logos, poet, cosmic hero, surgeon, as consultant to the Library of Con- architect gress? What do you see as your role of our hope of peace, in a leadership position of some kind among American poets today? Wronged, Exiled One, chosen to endure what agonies of HAYDEN: I will answer the last ques- knowledge, what tion first. I really don’t want to be any auroral dark kind of leader. I want to be left alone so I can do my work. This often hap- bestowals of truth pens to people. I find myself in a very vision power anguish for our future’s strategic position. I find, also, that sake. when I talk with my colleagues at the Library that the role of a consultant 2 Words in the Mourning Time, pp. 50-51. has to be defined and redefined.

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It has been suggested that I try to do That is one of the things I would all kind of things, and I do things that I like to do. It illustrates the kind of think might be appropriate and things program that I may be able to bring that might interest me. I need not be about there. I would like to have bound too much by traditions of the groups of young developing poets past. I think that the best leadership who have published books. The cri- in the realm of the arts, certainly as teria for appearing at the Library of far as poetry is concerned, is the kind Congress are that the poet has to have of leadership that is not leadership at been published and to have won a cer- all. I would hope that when occasions tain amount of recognition. There are present themselves, when I have to say some young poets who have published anything about poetry or be directly some books and won some recognition involved with poetry groups or what- but are not too widely known, and it ever, that it would become very clear would be of service to them to get a that I feel that we should be freewheel- few of them in a group to read at the ing, because there are many different Library. kinds of poetry. There is not just one Those are some of the things I’d kind, or just the kind I write, and any like to do. Whether I can do them or poetry can be good depending on the not depends on a lot of other things skill of the poet producing it. I have that have to be taken into consider- always recognized that there are many ation. But Dr. Boorstin, who is the Li- kinds of poetry. There isn’t just my brarian of Congress, suggested to me kind, or Ginsberg’s kind, or Wallace quite recently that I throw my weight Stevens’ kind. There are all kinds of around and try a few things. So, when poetry, and they can all be good, and I get there, who knows what I will be I think they should all be encouraged. inspired to do? I will be inviting poets, or sug- gesting names of poets who should RUHE: In an interview you mentioned be invited to read. I will be gathering that one of your concerns would also poets for taping sessions for the poetry be to have poets representing the di- archives. I will be suggesting different verse peoples of America. kinds of symposia that we could have. One that I am very much interested in HAYDEN: Oh, yes, very much so. is on science and poetry, although we In one way or another, I am in touch will probably call it science and litera- with so many poets and with poets of ture. Many poets have written poems many different ethnic backgrounds. I on outer space, space exploration, am going to encourage the Library to UFOs, and so forth. And there are oth- have readings in which two poets of ers who have written about scientific different ethnic backgrounds might matters and technology. share the program, or in which a man

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poet and a woman poet would read first of all, your friends take you more together. seriously and don’t feel that they can That is not revolutionary, but it is run in on you and interrupt your writ- not done so often that it is ordinary. ing; it also brings you opportunities I am not going to make it into a big for getting into your work and doing sociology festival or anything of that more work. That’s why it is important kind, but with the diversity of Ameri- to me. All the pictures in the papers, can poets and poetry styles being what the interviews, and so on get scary it is, it would seem to me unjust not after a while because I find myself to do as much as one could to let the thinking, “What am I saying? Am I various poets of different ethnic back- saying the right thing?” grounds have their chance. Really, I just want to be in a cor- What some people are not going ner, writing. When I was not as well to understand is that not just any known as I am today, which is putting poet comes to read at the Library of it mildly, I wanted to get my poems Congress. It took me something like published, as all poets do, and I was twenty to twenty-five years before I very devoted to writing and really was invited to read at the Library of dedicated to it, and thought of it day Congress. I have talked with people, and night. I would have a long teach- since my appointment, who feel that ing day, teaching four or five classes since they have written some poems in a day, and I would get home bone and maybe typed up a collection of tired, rest for a bit, amuse myself with poems this should guarantee them my wife and daughter as best I could, an invitation to the Library of Con- and then I would start writing again. gress. I know how they feel, but that I will be totally honest and very work alone really doesn’t warrant an blunt about it. I didn’t think I was invitation. There is a standard, and it that good. It is as simple as that. Peo- is pretty much that a poet must pub- ple seem to have the impression that lish and must have some recognition. for thirty years I sat around brooding And I think that’s only fair; other- because I wasn’t recognized. I didn’t wise, the distinction would become do that, but I wanted to write well meaningless. enough to receive recognition, I didn’t just want the ego trip. RUHE: Why is it that you expect- I would try to write around twelve ed never to receive this kind of o’clock—between twelve and three. recognition? Years and years of that, and eventu- ally I got up to something that was HAYDEN: When you receive the kind worth publishing. I never expected of recognition that I have received to get any of those prizes because I now at this age, it means two things: didn’t think my work was that good. I

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wanted it to be that good! I hoped that whose work has tremendous appeal it would be! But I didn’t have that sort for people of discernment and people of confidence. who have some intellectual interest. I think it is marvelous if you know His work may also appeal to people that you are great and that you are who are not that au-courant with penning deathless lyrics, but I think things, and why is this so? I think there are very few poets who know there is some kind of communication that. I guess rank amateurs always of something that is essentially hu- know how good they are, but I don’t man—I don’t know really how else to think great writers know. say it. The poetry of the good poet has RUHE: Who is to say or how it is de- nothing to do with the kind of popu- termined who is good? It seems so am- lar poetry we have been talking about; biguous. Who is a good poet? Who is rather, it has to do with poetry that a great poet? Who is a mediocre poet, speaks to all kinds of people because it and why? touches some nerve, some fundamen- tal thing, some concern. I certainly HAYDEN: Well, it’s certainly not don’t want to be immodest, but I’m the Academy that decides, although very close to being that kind of poet. I guess the Academy does sometimes I have read to all kinds of audienc- have some influence. What it really es, which rather surprised me because comes down to is the impact that your I didn’t think I would ever have that work has on people. And let us say that kind of audience. I’ve read on so many by people we mean discerning people, campuses, but I’ve also read in pris- people who know something about the ons and community houses, and small art. Because there are poets today who churches to people who don’t particu- are immensely popular and have pub- larly know about poetry. And I’ve read lished books that sell incredibly well, to audiences who were made up most- in the millions! And every once in a ly of town people—people who didn’t while these poets come up with some- spend much time reading poetry. thing that is rather good. But these I would really be interested in find- poets are not acclaimed because their ing out what it is that appeals to these poetry gives readers a new experience, audiences. As close as I can get to it, rather because it gives them what they it has something to do with my feel- already know! The readers don’t have ing for the universality of the human to do any work. They don’t even have experience, or something equally that to think. These poets remind readers fundamental. I tend to think of life in of something they already know. very fundamental ways and I tend to Then let’s take a very good poet see an importance into things so that whose work has an impact, a poet everything becomes symbolic to me.

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This undercurrent of meaning comes I have always seen a close connec- through in the poetry, and yet that still tion between poetry and religion. doesn’t explain what I mean. Poetry wells up out of the depths of Language, the power and magic of the human spirit, and it was the Báb language, works on people. Some po- Who said in a passage something to ets have this power, this skill with lan- the effect that visions are vouchsafed guage, some kind of magical quality. I to poets that the poet himself may not don’t mean that I have that, but I hope understand. I can work toward it. Poetry itself is a mysterious kind of thing. Sometimes I wonder what is it RUHE: I want to ask you now a series that I think I am doing. It’s all kind of of questions connected with the Bahá’í mysterious. Some poets say that it is a Faith. What is the connection between game you play with words, and that is spirituality—the soul of man—and true, up to a point. Some say it is an ar- poetry? tifact like any other—and that is also true, up to a point. But there are arti- HAYDEN: Poetry is very close to facts and there are artifacts, and why religion, and I am going to say, tan- is it that a poem by Whitman is one gentially, that when we speak of the kind of artifact and a poem by Yeats is prophets as being poets—and we another kind of artifact entirely? speak of Bahá’u’lláh in particular— I think that there will always be this is very true because the prophet certain mysteries about poetry as uses symbols. Bahá’u’lláh speaks in there will always be certain mysteries parables, metaphors, and all the devic- about religion. There is something es that we associate with poetry in an that brings poetry and religion very attempt to give us analogies and make close together. They both come out clear, as far as possible, the mysteries of the spirit and they both deal with of which He speaks. the unknown. Indeed, poetry has been It is really very hard to understand described as being on the line between life after death. It is very hard to un- the known and the unknown. Certain- derstand God. I remember how happy ly religion is on that line : I was when I came across the passage

that God is man’s mystery and man BAHÁ’U’LLÁH is God’s mystery. I thought, “That is IN THE GARDEN OF RIDVÁN3 so marvelous; that is great poetry!” I thought, “I’ve got to do something Agonies confirm His hour, with that.” We have to have something and swords like compass-needles turn to compare with things we cannot un- toward His heart, derstand. We have to talk about God being like a shepherd or like a father. 3 Ballad of Remembrance, p. 43.

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The midnight air is forested something—kinetically, I mean. You with presences that shelter Him feel something inside your stomach, and sheltering praise say, or even a change in your breathing. There are poems that appeal to The auroral darkness which is God most of your senses, to hearing, sight, and sing the word made flesh again and so on. There are poems that seem in Him. to possess you totally, and they are usually very great poems. For me the Eternal exile whose return epiphanies repeatedly poems of W. B. Yeats are like that. I foretell can be totally possessed and immersed in the poem, and the reason is the He watches in a borrowed garden, intensity of the spiritual vision that prays. And sleepers toss upon produced the poem combined with the their armored beds, ability of the poet, to communicate something of the purity and intensity Half-roused by golden knocking at of that vision. the doors of consciousness. Energies Even when a poem is very like angels dance realistic—I have written some poems that are fairly realistic because they Glorias of recognition. grew out of some quotidian, some Within the rock the undiscovered suns ordinary experience—but what makes release their light. it a poem is something that has nothing RUHE: I get the feeling, sometimes, to do with the realism. It’s something when I read poems that I would else again. But the poet can’t always characterize as affective that I am achieve that something else, can’t energized by the poem. It’s as though always hit it, and that is why you don’t I receive a kind of energy from that write a poem a day. You don’t even poem and I feel as if it is on a different write a great poem every year. You level. My mind, my consciousness, my get down on your knees and thank the awareness moves on. I am here on the Lord if you get one in ten years. ordinary plane of existence, then I But the reason that you do feel so read the poem, and all of a sudden I’m possessed by a poem is that you are on a different level. sharing in some intense vision with the poet. HAYDEN: A poem should do that be- cause it is taking you into the realm RUHE: You mentioned earlier of imagination, and it is also eliciting Bahá’u’lláh as one of the prophets of an almost total response. For example, God. How did you become a Bahá’í, there are poems that make you feel and how does it affect your poetry?

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HAYDEN: I went back to the Univer- would never have had any spiritual ob- sity of Michigan in 1941 and 1942, ligation to it. But once we had heard it and there were Bahá’ís on the campus. . . . well, what could we do? They held firesides,4 and my wife and If you care for the truth—and I I became interested. At first, Erma think that artists are working toward was more interested than I was, and the truth; art is one way toward she became a Bahá’í before I did. And the truth, even though there are when I did become a Bahá’í, I wasn’t many other ways—certainly I could really what one might think of as a not ignore the truth of the Bahá’í typical or stereotypical seeker. Revelation. I wasn’t looking for a religion. I had For a long time I didn’t know how been a Baptist, and while I had pretty it was affecting my work. I didn’t see much repudiated the denomination, the relationship between what I was I still believed in God and still felt a writing and the Faith. Indeed, when I certain loyalty to Jesus Christ. That was less sophisticated in my outlook, I was one of the hardest things for thought that the only way that I could me to get over. I had such a loyalty really serve the Cause was by writing to Jesus Christ, and He was so very religious poems. real to me that when I heard that Later on as I pondered what Bahá’u’lláh represented the return of Bahá’u’lláh said about the role of Christ, I thought, “Oh, no! Watch out the artist, I began to realize that here. What are we getting into?” if you really had this new spiritual I wasn’t looking for anything, orientation, just about anything you and my wife—we talked about this— did could be of service. For example, really wasn’t either. We would have I began to be aware of things that been perfectly content to go on with ostensibly have absolutely nothing to our work. But once we learned about do with religion, but I think my poems the coming of Bahá’u’lláh, there was take the turns they do because I have nothing to do but accept it because it certain beliefs and a certain set of was the truth, and we were convinced principles by which I live and by which it was the truth. I write. Everything we read—everything This is of great comfort to me be- we experienced as Christians—rath- cause one time I was troubled. I could er corroborated the statements that write you quite an interesting memoir were made in Bahá’í writings. If we on how I sat in my front room one had never heard of this truth, then we day when I was still teaching at Fisk 4 “Firesides” are informal discussions University, and suddenly I was filled about the Bahá’í Faith usually held in the with a sense of cold, almost inexpress- homes of Bahá’ís for seekers interested in ible horror, because something swept finding out about the Faith. over me: “You know, you are not really

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dealing with reality! Everything you WORKS CITED are doing is false! You are not really seeing the connection between what Bahá’u’lláh. Gleanings from the Writings you say you believe in and what you are of Bahá’u’lláh. Trans. Shoghi doing as a writer!” Effendi. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Imagine the horrifying experience. Publishing Trust, 2005. Print. It doesn’t seem like anything in the telling, but it was one of those Hatcher, John. From the Auroral moments. After that I began to try and Darkness: The Life and Poetry find out what the relationship was. As of Robert E. Hayden. Oxford: a result, today I feel very comfortable George Ronald Publishers, about that relationship. I don’t have to 1984. Print. worry about it, because it lies behind everything I do. Hayden, Robert E. American Journal. I would like to write a poem about New York: Liveright Publish- the martyrdom of the Báb, but it ing Corporation, 1982. Print. might be a poem that would not be of any use at all to Bahá’ís, not if they ———. Ballad of Remembrance. want to use it in some way and not London: Paul Breman, 1962. just respond to it as a poem. You see, I Print. don’t feel impelled to propagandize. I am sort of happy. ———. Words in the Mourning Time. As I get older, my mind gets clearer. New York: October House, Why, when I was your age, my dear 1970. Print. young man, I greatly feared that when I got to be in my fifties (and now I am in my sixties), it would be curtains! There would be nothing left. Well, I am delighted to discover that now I have even more ideas. You say the word “sunrise,” and I could fill up pag- es, and that is a marvelous feeling. Yes, I may yet do something before I die.

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