It is no wonder that Robert Hayden developed the introspective, sensitive soul of a poet. He was off to a less than promising start when he was born as Asa Bundy Sheffey, in Detroit, Michigan. His parents separated before he was born, and once he arrived, his mother left him with a neighboring couple, Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden.

He grew up in a ghetto known as "Paradise Valley." The Hayden-Westerfield marriage was nearly as unstable as Robert's parents' relationship, and the child grew up surrounded by both emotional and physical traumas. He witnessed frequent fights between his foster parents and others in the home, and was the victim of regular beatings. He remembered his childhood home as full of profound anger.

Due to his severe vision problems he was unable to participate in sports and other social activities of children. His violent home and painful isolation led young Robert to suffer from depression at an early age. He called such times "my dark nights of the soul." His thick glasses and slight stature and build led to teasing at school. He had no friends, and so escaped into books, reading everything he could put his hands on.

Upon graduating high school, he enrolled at Detroit City College (now Wayne State University), but left to join the Federal Writers Project. His topics of research included black history and folk culture. When he completed his work for the FWP, he married Emma Morris. Not long after, he published his first volume of poetry, Heart-shape in the Dust. He then enrolled at the University of Michigan. When he completed his Bachelor of Arts, he decided to pursue graduate studies. He studied under W.H. Auden.

Upon completion of the Master of Arts, he taught several years at Michigan, and then accepted a position at Fisk University, where he taught for twenty-three years. He returned to Michigan to finish out his teaching career in 1969.

Hayden was elected to the American Academy of Poets in 1975, and was appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1976. He served in that capacity until 1978 and was the first African-American to be appointed to the position. Hayden's work often appears in anthologies for students, most notably his poem, "Those Winter Sundays." The poem discusses the love of a father and painful loneliness.