Question

How does Robert Hayden recover what had been lost of the African-American experience in his poetry?

Answer 1

Robert Hayden tries to capture the life, pain, suffering and glory of the Black community through his poems, especially, “Those Winter Sundays” which brings out the Christian values and the strict Christian parenthood in the African American households, “Middle Passage” which brings out the account of how slave traders brought Africans across the Atlantic to America in order to suffer and lose their identity and “Homage to the Empress of the Blues” where he pays homage to an African American blues singer, Bessie Smith who was very famous during the 1920s and 1930s.