A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Caroline Murray started her career as a middle school mathematics teacher. She left teaching to raise two children and when she returned to the work force, it was as a social worker with the Dept. of Retardation in Connecticut. In 1998 she audited some literature courses at her local community college, focusing on Black literature and international literature. In one of these courses, she discovered the poetry of Robert Hayden. A follower of Bahaۥi herself, she became deeply interested in the way his faith influenced his poetry. This interest resulted in her writing study guides to introduce others outside the formal educational context to Hayden's poetry.
Asa Bundy Sheffey was born in a poor neighborhood in Detroit on August 4, 1913. His father deserted his mother before the baby's birth and, finding herself unable to care for her child, she gave him to her neighbors Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden. The couple changed his name to Robert Earl Hayden and raised the small, introspective child in their reportedly tumultuous home. A voracious reader, Hayden was one of the few African-Americans in his high school. He went on to Detroit City College, now called Wayne State University, only to withdraw in 1936 for lack of money. He took W.P.A. jobs as a historical researcher on African-American history and folk culture topics and also worked as a drama and music critic for one of Detroit's African-American newspapers. In 1940, he married Erma Inez Morris, a concert pianist and music teacher and also published his first work, Heart-Shape in the Dust. He studied at the University of Michigan from 1941-1942 with W. H. Auden who, recognizing Hayden's poetic gifts, became his mentor. In 1943, Hayden became a Bahaۥi. In 1946, he took a teaching position at Fisk University in Nashville where he remained until 1969 when he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan. He was elected a fellow of the Academy of American Poets in 1975 and from 1976-1978, he was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position now called Poet Laureate. He died on February 25, 1980.
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Caroline D. Murray collection on Robert Hayden and his poetry, Ms. 2008.028, Brown University Library.
This collection consists chiefly of study guides to Robert Hayden's poetry. There is some correspondence, photographs, printouts, photocopies of Hayden's poems, extracts from interviews with Hayden, newspaper clippings and a bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. The collection spans about seventy years including photocopies of Hayden's earliest poetry, "Heart-shape in the dust", from 1940 and e-mail to Murray in 2006. As the first African-American poet laureate, Hayden has an important place in the history of American poetry in the 20th century, but it was chiefly as a follower of the Bahaۥi religion that he attracted the attention of Caroline Murray while she was studying literature in community college courses. She developed a series of study guides so that she or other facilitators could lead discussions of the poetry in small Bahaۥi study groups.
Series one consists of correspondence of both Murray's and Hayden's. Murray's correspondence is about Bahaۥi discussion groups. Hayden's correspondence is about the publication of a book of his poetry which languished on an editor's desk too long.
The second series is the heart of the collection. It consists of multiple study guides to Hayden's poetry. Each guide focuses on a different aspect of his poetry: art and artist, childhood memory, and African American history. This section includes a talk developed for a Mount Holyoke book club and a special study guide to a single poem "Runagate, runagate".
Series three is a bibliography of the sources Murray used. Primary and secondary sources are listed separately. Articles and books are also listed separately and there is yet another category for web resources. This bibliography includes the first publication dates for all of Hayden's works.
The fourth series consists of commentary filed under the title of the poem to which the material relates. Some of this material also appears as appendices in the study guides. There are quotations from interviews with Hayden and background information gleaned from Murray's research.
Series five is supplementary material which Murray hoped would help explain Hayden's poems. There are laminated photographs of lightening, ice storms, a night blooming cereus, famous African Americans and biographical information on people like Paul Robeson and Frederick Douglass who are the subjects of two of Hayden's poems. These are largely filed by poem title.
The sixth series consists of further resources. These folders contain information on scholars who have expertise in the field of African American poetry and institutions with collections of African American poetry and Hayden's work in particular.
Series seven covers songs and singers. Murray assembled a list of musical works that she determined reflected Hayden's poems. She transcribed the lyrics, listed the performers who are largely African American and noted the source, including the CD number. These are filed in alphabetical order by the title of the piece.
Series eight consists of Murray's class notes from the community college courses on such topics as the Harlem Renaissance and World Literature. These are filed by course title.
The ninth series contains information on the Bahaۥi religion and commentary on several of Robert Hayden's poems which directly reflect his own faith. This series also includes Murray's biographical information because it focuses on her faith as well.
Series ten consists of photocopies of Hayden's poetry, largely from various anthologies.
The collection is arranged into the following series:
This collection was donated to the Brown University Library by Caroline D. Murray on August 20, 2007.
Brown University Library catalog record for this collection: