Great Regulars: The interesting biographical side note is,

of course, that [Robert E.] Hayden's biological parents gave him up to foster parents, but whether the "memory" is an orphan's longing or a fragment of an actual memory, the power of the poem is the same. The final phrase about "love's austere and lonely offices" has a grandeur and poise that elevate the duty to the level of religious ritual, as does the 14-line form of this sonnet, albeit in free verse. It's that same sense of dignity that Hayden brought to this next poem, which praises a different kind of sacrifice for another ancestor of his: the freed slave Frederick Douglass.

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful

from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

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