The Father (Those Winter Sundays)
Arguably, the most studied if not necessarily the most famous character in the canon of Robert Hayden is the father who gets up early on Sundays in winter to make the home warm for when it is time to wake up the speaker when he was child forced to dress nice for church.
Frederick Douglass
In the sonnet titled after him, Frederick Douglass is acknowledged as a former slave who has been suffered terribly for his freedom, but is presented less a figure from history books than a figure of inspiration for the poet’s own time. His legacy is situated no in the form of metal, stone or wood, but in the spirit of those who lives are better now and those lives which will be even better in the future as a result of what Douglass did to deserve those memorials.
Nat Turner (The Ballad of Nat Turner)
Another heroic slave who turns up in the poetry of Hayden is Nat Turner. Unlike with Frederick Douglass, however, Turner is not alienated from his time in bondage to become a figure for the present. The poet places the reader directly into the mind of Turner at the most important moment of his life as a battle wages within his soul, leading to the moment of conversion and acceptance of fate with the destiny of rebellion.
Sue Ellen Westerfield (The Ballad of Sue Ellen Westerfield)
The title character of this poem has a real-inspiration like those figures mentioned above, but differs in one respect: she is a composite characters created by the poet from two personal inspirations: his own biological mother and the foster mother who raised him. The character receives her name from the maiden name of his foster mother. Her narrative—perhaps not surprisingly—is one that touches upon many themes and incidents that find their way into the poet’s over verse: drama on the sea and a desperate attempt to escape the fate of slavery’s bondage.
Mark Van Doren (A Ballad of Remembrance)
Mentioned by name at the end of “A Ballad of Remembrance” is Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, institutional Columbia professor and father of the most notorious figure involved in the quiz show scandals of the 1950’s, Mark Van Doren. In fact, the final lines reveal that the poem is in remembrance of Van Doren; “a souvenir for you.” Why offer as a souvenir to an upper crust New England white man a poem that is otherwise up to those final lines a dazzling dance of imagery associated with the culture of African-American celebrations of Mardi Gras in New Orleans such as “Quadroon mermaids,” a “Zulu King” and “masked negroes” in gaudy gowns? Because the poem was inspired by Van Doren’s generosity and friendship when the two were both invited to read their poems at rally in the Big Easy, but could eat a meal at the same table or share a room in the same hotel due to the city’s racist Jim Crow laws being firmly upheld as late as 1946.
