FREE Partner Event @The Block: Michigan Poet Laureate and the Marion Hayden Jazz Trio

Melba Joyce Boyd
Detroit native, Melba Joyce Boyd, is the third Poet Laureate of the State of Michigan and the 2023 Kresge Eminent Artist. She is the award-winning writer of nine books of poetry, the biographies of two major African American writers, Dudley Randall (1914-200) and Frances E. W. Harper (1825-1911), editor of Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall, and co-editor with M.L. Liebler of Abandon Automobile: Detroit Poetry 2001. She has also over 100 published essays, as well as director of two documentary films about Detroit poets, Dudley Randall and Naomi Long Madgett. She is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of African American Studies at Wayne State University, and adjunct professor in Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.

Boyd’s poem, “The Museum Was Once a Dream,” is engraved in bronze and appears on the dedication wall of the Wright Museum of African American History. Lines from her poem, “We Want Our City Back,” appears in the sculpture, “Michigan’s Tribute to Labor,” in Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit, and “Maple Red” appears in the Detroit Institute of Arts adjacent to the painting by Ed Clark.

Marion Hayden Legacy Trio
No stranger to The Block stage, Hayden has had a more than 20-year collaboration with Michigan Poet Laureate Dr. Melba Joyce Boyd, creating original musical landscapes to accompany Boyd's rich tapestry of poetry. Named the 2025 Kresge Eminent Artist by the Kresge Foundation, Hayden was mentored by master trumpeter Marcus Belgrave; and began performing jazz at the age of 15. She has performed with such diverse luminaries as Bobby McFerrin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Geri Allen, Regina Carter, Steve Turre, David Allen Grier, James Carter and Nancy Wilson.

Widely recognized as an advocate for the preservation of cultural and artistic legacy, Hayden was honored with the prestigious Kresge Artist Fellowship, the Spirit of Detroit Award and the Jazz Hero Award from the National Assoc. of Jazz Journalists.

Her creative practice centers around her ensemble Legacy which performs original, narrative driven compositional works within the framework of improvised music with an emphasis on African American and diasporic music.

She is a co-founder of the Grammy nominated ensemble Straight Ahead- the first all-woman jazz ensemble signed to a major record label.