Robert Hayden

Robert Hayden was a twentieth-century American poet who became the first African American to be appointed as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. His poetry collections span nearly forty years, beginning with Heart-Shape in the Dust in 1940 and ending with American Journal in 1978, published two years before he died. One of his abiding preoccupations was black history and experience and the importance of his work has been widely recognised. He received a number of awards including the Academy of American Poets Fellowship.