Probably everything that needs to be said
about being a black artist in America was said
by Langston Hughes nearly fifty years ago in
‘‘The Negro Artist And The Racial Mountain.’’
The opening passage of Hughes’s article is often
quoted against those writers who would deny
their racial heritage.
One of the most promising of the young Negro
poets said to me once, ‘‘I want to be a poet—not
a Negro poet,’’ meaning, I believe, ‘‘I want to
write like a white poet’’; meaning subcon-
sciously, ‘‘I would like to be a white poet’’;
meaning behind that, ‘‘I would like to be
white.’’ And I was sorry the young man said
that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of
being himself. And I doubted then that, with his
desire to run away spiritually from his race, this
boy would ever be a great poet. But this is the
mountain standing in the way of any true Negro
art in America—this urge within the race
toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial indi-
viduality into the mold of American standard-
ization, and to be as little Negro and as much
American as possible.
But what has often been ignored is the con-
clusion of the article, which differs considerably
from contemporary manifestos that call for a sep-
aration of black from white on all levels of culture.
Hughes instead asked for a separation of the artist
from his duller critics, white or black, with their
preconceived notions. His is a call for the individu-
alism of the black artist.
We younger Negro artists who create now
intend to express our individual dark-skinned
selves without fear or shame. If white people
are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t
matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly
too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs.
If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they
are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either.
We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as
we know how, and we stand on top of the
mountain, free within ourselves.
Certainly there is nothing in Robert Hayden’s
work that would conflict with Hughes’s seminal
statement. There is no denial of race in Hayden
nor is there any acceptance of a narrowness in
technique, diction, or theme because of his race.
At the core of Hayden’s work is suffering, but
the suffering is not limited to that caused by racial
prejudice. One finds it in personal sounding
poems, in poems of Negro History and contem-
porary violence, in those about the Mexican poor,
and even in his religious poems that center on
Baha’u’llah, the cult figure of the Baha’i religion
that Hayden professes. But also at the core of his
work is hope—tough, unsentimental hope that
challenges the pain.
‘‘The Diver,’’ the opening poem of Hayden’s
Selected Poems, sounds the keynote of much of
his work. The speaker dives deep into the sea
where he is drawn to the beauties of the water
and the treasures of a sunken ship he finds there.
In lines that seem to echo Keats, he considers
remaining where he is, never again to rise to life,
its confusion and pain:... have
done with self and
every dinning
vain complexity.
But something (‘‘Reflex of life-wish?’’ the
speaker asks) makes him return as he
... Swam from
the ship somehow,
Somehow began the
Measured rise.
...‘‘Those Winter Sundays,’’ one of Hay-
den’s quietest and most moving poems, portrays
a father, misunderstood in childhood, understood
too late now. The ending of the poem beautifully
combines the particular details of the child’s
world with the agonizing realization of the adult’s
question.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Hayden’s most characteristic style is a more
explosive one than the above poems would sug-
gest, filled with alliteration and complicated sound
effects supported by a rather expansive vocabu-
lary. At times his music and diction are reminiscent
of Wallace Stevens, more often of Hart Crane, and
in a few places, where the rhythms are most pro-
nounced, of Vachel Lindsay. ‘‘Summertime and
the Living... ,’’ a vivid description of the limita-
tions of a summer in the slums, has a quiet opening
but ends on a note of high sound appropriate to
dreams of escape:
then Elks parade and big splendiferous
Jack Johnson in his diamond limousine
set the ghetto burgeoning
with fantasies
of Ethiopia spreading her gorgeous wings.
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