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Laurence Goldstein and Robert Chrisman, eds. Robert Hayden: Essays on the Poetry. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2001. 337 pp. $57.50.
Admirers and students of Robert Hayden's poetry will welcome Robert Hayden: Essays on the Poetry, edited by Laurence Goldstein and Robert Chrisman. The selections are divided into four categories: "The Poet's Voice," "Reviews," "General Essays" on the poetry, and "Essays on Individual Poems." The first includes two interviews with Hayden, three reviews by him, a brief statement on poetics, and two poems-an unfinished draft of "Entrance and Tableux for Josephine Baker" and "Ballad of the True Beast," which appeared in The Night-Blooming Cereus but was not included in Collected Poems. Among the fifteen reviews of Hayden's books that comprise section two are pieces by Gwendolyn Brooks, Julius Lester, and Michael S. Harper. Darwin T. Turner, Reginald Gibbons, W. D. Snodgrass, and Harper are among the contributors of the eleven general essays. Brian Conniff, Calvin Hernton, and Yusef Komunyakaa are among the eight who discuss individual poems. The volume brings together already published work from widely scattered sources and a substantial amount of previously unpublished material. Each of the editors is represented by a substantial essay, and together they contribute a brief introduction, helpful chronology of Hayden's life, and a selected bibliography of works by and about the poet.
As is inevitable in a collection of this kind, the pieces vary somewhat in quality and in interest. The overall level, however, is quite high. Unfortunately space prevents me from commenting on more than a select few. Particularly noteworthy in the first section are Hayden's interviews with Dennis Gendron and A. Poulin, Jr. Referring to a poem "about Prophet Jones" ("Witch-Doctor"), Hayden tells Gendron of his seeking the dramatic, the "element of mystery" in people: "There is a kind of mystery-there is something that...