Homage to the Empress of the Blues (1962). Detailed description

“Homage to the Empress of the Blues” first appeared in what Hayden later called one of his “apprentice works,” The Lion and the Archer, a publication he collaborated on with Myron O’Higgins. He published six poems in that collection—one of them “Homage.” Although the poem appears in almost every subsequent collection of Hayden’s poetry, only the phrasing of the sixth line changes from “flashed her golden teeth and sang” to “flashed her golden smile and sang.” This one change, however, is an illustration of Hayden’s tinkering and searching for the exact word and image over the years. The smile represents the wonderful generosity of her art and its beauty.

The poem pays tribute to Bessie Smith, one of the most famous blues women. He captures her grace and bravado. Her yards of pearls, her satin and ostrich feathers, make a statement that defies the “riot-squad of statistics” about poor and working-class black women. Her elegance and poise despite the fact that she is singing “my man-done-me-wrong” songs counter the images those statistics present of black life. She cheers her audience with her golden smile and her stage presence, offering them a kind of model of “grace under pressure.”

Hayden called the poems from his early publishing period “baroque,” and if the diction of this poem is compared to that of “Frederick Douglass,” the differences are clear. For example, the poem opens with the description of a man who is “gracile,” not a word in vernacular vocabulary. According to the dictionary, however, it means “of slender build in a charming or attractive way.” So, while Hayden’s use of this word shows a fondness for unusual words, it also shows his persistence in searching out words that carry exact meaning. Gracile seems perfectly to capture the type of man “dangerous as a jaguar” to women—beautiful, sleek, and predatory.

Likewise, he uses the word laths later in the poem; a lath is a thin flat strip of wood, especially one of a series forming the foundation for the plaster of a wall or the tiles of a roof. Note that in the poem, these foundation strips are beginning to show through, highlighting the economic predicament of people who live in fear of those “statistics” used to devalue them. They fear “alarming fists of snow,” which suggest government intervention or interference from members of the dominant society.

In other words, these folks are guilty of being black and poor and so, perhaps judged as “shiftless and lazy.” Thus, despite the unfamiliarity of Hayden’s word choices, they are considered choices. They each help emphasize the setting for the Empress’s performance and the community’s need for a presence like hers.

Robert Hayden pays homage to this empress because she not only sings the blues, turning anguish into art, but offers them as a live demonstration of how to transform life’s indignities—its poverty and pain—into beauty.

For Discussion or Writing
1. This poem is structured with two “because” sections, each followed by a description of the woman singer. Look closely at each of these sections. What information does each contain? Then look at the sections that describe the singer. How does each description relate to the section it follows?

2. This homage is to a known blues singer, Bessie Smith. There are pictures of her, especially one frequently used for postcards, and so on. Find a picture and read some about her life, especially her life as a performer. Reread the poem after completing this research. What does that add to your reading and interpretation?