African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Donald Jeffrey Hayes, Biographical Note from "Caroling Dusk" 1927)

DONALD JEFFREY Hayes was born November 16, 1904, in Raleigh, N. C. At the age of five his parents brought him to Atlantic City, N. J., where he attended the public schools through the freshman year of High School. In 1913 he moved with his family to Pleasantville, N. J.,
where in his sophomore year of High School he was awarded, after a near student strike, court action and the dismissal of a member of the faculty—the highest debating honors. Following this unpleasantness, he went to Chicago where he studied privately the forms of poetry while completing his High School work. He graduated in 1926 from Englewood an honor student, and distinguished, as it were, as "The poet of Englewood” and “The Bronze God” as his fellow students dubbed him. He is at present planning a volume of his verse and studying the voice, planning to make his career in the concert field.