Tag Archives: Robert Hayden

ROBERT HAYDEN. A CENTENNIAL CONFERENCE AND POETRY TRIBUTE.

Robert_Hayden_by_Jay_Semple

Robert Hayden (Jay Semple)

November 1, 2013 – ROBERT HAYDEN: A CENTENNIAL CONFERENCE AND POETRY TRIBUTE

Rackham Amphitheatre – Fourth Floor. The Rackham Graduate School. The University of Michigan. 10:00AM – 5:00PM. 915 E Washington St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

The Department of English at the University of Michigan has announced plans for a one-day conference on November 1, 2013 in honor of Robert Hayden, the distinguished poet and educator who received an M.A. degree from the University of Michigan in 1944 and returned to teach at the university in 1970 as Professor of English until his death in 1980.

Hayden has emerged as a major figure in American literary history. He is the leader, along with Gwendolyn Brooks, of the generation of African American poets that emerged in the 1940s to achieve widespread critical attention and a massive presence in anthologies and textbooks. He served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress (the position now known as Poet Laureate of the United States) from 1976-1978. The U.S. Post Office issued a postage stamp in 2012 to honor his achievement.

The keynote address of the conference, to be held in the Rackham Amphitheater, will be delivered by Harryette Mullen, Professor of English and Creative Writing at UCLA, a Guggenheim Fellow (among other honors), and a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her volume of essays and interviews, The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be, appeared in 2012.

Professor Mullen will be introduced by A. Van Jordan of the U-M faculty. A panel discussion in early afternoon will include Mullen, Linda Gregerson (of the U-M faculty), Lawrence Joseph, a Detroit native and the preeminent Arab-American poet of our time, and Frederick Glaysher, editor of Hayden’s Collected Poems and Collected Prose. Robert Hayden is a character in Glaysher’s recently published epic poem, The Parliament of Poets. Laurence Goldstein, Professor of English and co-editor (with Robert Chrisman) of Robert Hayden: Essays on the Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2001), will serve as panel moderator.

In late afternoon, MFA students will read from and speak about Hayden’s poems, along with other participants in the conference.

Timetable:

10 a.m. Keynote address by Harryette Mullen
12-1:30 p.m. Lunch at various restaurants around campus
1:30-3:00 p.m. Panel discussion
3:00-5:00 p.m. Readings and remarks by audience members

After presenting some reflections on Hayden and his poetry on the panel, during the late afternoon, I’ll be reading a passage from my epic poem, The Parliament of Poems, from the Persona’s flight to the moon, with his guide, the poet Robert Hayden. Hope you can make it. The day promises to be a worthy tribute to a life well lived for the art of poetry. Please help spread the word far and wide.

UPDATE 9-22-2013: I attended and enjoyed a poetry reading yesterday, by Herbert Woodward Martin, at Wayne State University in Detroit. He’s of course the famous interpreter of Paul Laurence Dunbar. He gave a powerful reading of Hayden’s poem “Frederick Douglass,” among others… See the Calendar for other Centennial events honoring Hayden and Dudley Randall. Please help letting other people know about them by Sharing… Robert Hayden and Dudley Randall Centennial Calendar

Frederick Glaysher

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Epic Poetry Reading, Albany Poets Word Fest

The Parliament of Poets: An Epic Poem

The Parliament of Poets: An Epic Poem

Epic Poetry Reading, Albany Poets Word Fest, April 21, 2012 

Albany Poets News, (February 8, 2013) “If you were at the 2012 Albany Word Fest Open Mic at the Albany Public Library you will remember Frederick Glaysher and his epic poem The Parliament of Poets. His work certainly wowed the crowd at the library with the performance and the words themselves. …read an extended section from lunar epic “The Parliament of Poets,” with the 20th Century Afro-American poet Robert Hayden as guide.”

“I found myself sitting in my study, dozing
over a book, Cervantes’ Don Quixote,
surrounded by volumes of world classics….”

Copyright (c) 2012 Frederick Glaysher.

The entire reading is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL21F9D6C4DA6FE818

Read a free chapter, BOOK I, The Parliament of Poets: An Epic Poem

Frederick Glaysher

 

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Epic Poetry Workshop

An Epic Poetry Workshop, presented by Frederick Glaysher, at the Austin International Poetry Festival, AIPF, September 29, 2012.

“Frederick Glaysher presents a workshop designed to revive the genre of epic poetry. He researched this genre and developed two worksheets with collections of quotations and reflections on epic poetry which helped him develop his own thinking and practice. From the perspective of having now finished the 8th draft of his own epic poem, he finds much more in them and looks forward to talking with people about the genre. Having taught college courses in the past in non-Western literature, the great Asian epics are very important to him, too, and he will explore some aspects of Chinese and Indian epic as well. The workshop combines reading, discussion, thought-provoking questions, and writing practice.” — From the 20th Anniversary Celebration Program for AIPF.

Frederick Glaysher

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Austin International Poetry Festival

Reading from the eighth draft of my epic poem The Parliament of Poets at the Austin International Poetry Festival, September 28, 2012, in Austin, Texas, at BookWoman, a feminist bookstore.

From BOOK III,

“While I was trying to absorb it all,
a figure emerged from down the hill…”

Frederick Glaysher

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