Robert Hayden

It seemed to me as we were talking about Christ rising from the dead, the sun popped over the mountain. That was…

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human,…

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror and the hunters pursuing and…

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

Shuttles in the rocking loom of history, the dark ships move, the dark ships move, their bright ironical names like jests of…

— Robert Hayden

“We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human,…

— Robert Hayden

“Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand by the window looking out at moonstruck trees a December storm has bowed with ice.…

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

“O Jesus burning on the lily cross... O night, rawhead and bloodybones night... O night betrayed by darkness not its own.”

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

“When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking…

— Robert Hayden

“Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached…

— Robert Hayden

[My poetry is] a way of coming to grips with reality . . . a way of discovery and definition. It is…

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

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

— Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached…

— Robert Hayden