Robert Hayden is an author whose childhood, like many others, helped shaped his perception on life. As a child, Hayden suffered through a family crises where his biological parents separated after his birth and soon after, he became the foster son of his neighbors (Gates and Smith, 225). This crucial family division has lead Hayden to write many works demonstrating his hardships throughout this experience. Focusing on one of his poems “Those Winter Sundays,” he depicts the troublesome relationship between his foster father, as discussed in class, and himself. A feelings of regret are shown throughout the poem because of the lack of appreciation the speaker had towards his father as a child. Hayden writes, “what did I know, what did I know,” …show more content…
Hayden writes this poem in a very interpersonal perspective, almost as if the speaker wrote down his experiences with his father in a journal; therefore, I truly believe the speaker is Robert Hayden himself. Hayden is an author who wrote non-fiction pieces such as the previously mentioned, “Those Winter Sundays” which makes his work that much more relatable. Though he writes in an interpersonal manner, his audience is aimed at those who similarly experience a poor relationship amongst relatives and/or close relationships. In addition, it is obvious that Hayden writes the poem with his father in mind, who he purposely but indirectly, makes part of his audience: “No one ever thanked him” (5). This specific lines also emphasizes the longing to have once been able to …show more content…
This poem is also in iambic pentameter, and though it lacks a uniformed rhyme scheme, there is rhyming in certain words within in a line such as line two, instead of typical “a, b, a, b,” form. Hayden emphasizes words that were used as adjectives, whether it is describing the temperature “banked fires blaze” (5), or physical attributes “with cracked hands that ached” (3), or verbs “slowly I would rise” (8). The author also introduces alliteration in “put his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (2) and “when the rooms were warm”
“Those Winter Sundays” tells of Robert Hayden’s father and the cold mornings his father endures to keep his family warm in the winters. In “Digging” Heaney is sitting in the window watching his father do hard manual labor, which has taken a toll on his body. In “My Father as a Guitar” Espada goes to the doctors office with his father and is sitting in the office with his dad when the doctor tells him he has to take pain killers and to stop working because his body was growing old and weak. The authors of the poems all look at their fathers the same; they look at them with much respect and gratitude. All three poems tell of the hard work the dads have to do to keep their family fed and clothed. “The landlord, here a symbol of all the mainstream social institutions that hold authority over the working class” (Constantakis.) Espada’s father is growing old and his health is deteriorating quickly but his ability to stop working is not in his own hands, “I can’t the landlord won’t let me” (774.) “He is separated from the homeland, and his life in the United States is far from welcoming” (Constantakis.) Espada’s Grandmother dies in Puerto Rico and the family learns this by a lett...
If I were asked who the most precious people in my life are, I would undoubtedly answer: my family. They were the people whom I could lean on to matter what happens. Nonetheless, after overhearing my mother demanded a divorce, I could not love her as much as how I loved her once because she had crushed my belief on how perfect life was when I had a family. I felt as if she did not love me anymore. Poets like Philip Levine and Robert Hayden understand this feeling and depict it in their poems “What Work Is” and “Those Winter Sundays.” These poems convey how it feels like to not feel love from the family that should have loved us more than anything in the world. Yet, they also convey the reconciliation that these family members finally reach because the speakers can eventually see love, the fundamental component of every family in the world, which is always presence, indeed. Just like I finally comprehended the reason behind my mother’s decision was to protect me from living in poverty after my father lost his job.
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden is a poem about a how the author is recalling how his father would wake up early on Sundays, a day which is usually a reserved as a day of rest by many, to fix a fire for his family. The mood of this poem is a bit sad. It portrays a father, who deeply cares for his family but doesn't seem to show it by emotions, words, or touching. It also describes a home that isn't very warm in feelings as well as the title" Those Winter Sundays" The author describes the father as being a hard worker, in the line "…with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday…", but still even on Sundays--the day of rest, the father works at home to make sure the house is warm for his family. The "blueblack cold described in the poem is now warmed by a father's love. This poem describes the author reminiscing what did not seem obvious at the time, the great love of his father, and the author's regretting to thank his father for all that he did.
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” displays a past relationship between a child and his father. Hayden makes use of past tense phrases such as “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (6) to show the readers that the child is remembering certain events that took place in the past. Although the child’s father did not openly express his love towards him when he was growing up, the child now feels a great amount of guilt for never thanking his father for all the things he actually did for him and his family. This poem proves that love can come in more than one form, and it is not always a completely obvious act.
Robert Earl Hayden was born on August 4th, 1913, with his birth name of Asa Bundy Sheffey. It wasn’t until he later lived with foster parents William and Sue Ellen Hayden, that his name was legally changed. Hayden was raised in a poor neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan known as Paradise Valley. After many years of witnessing both physical and verbal confrontations amongst his foster parents, he suffered from depression, and utilized poetry as an escape. In 1932, Hayden graduated from high school and attended Detroit City College, which would later become known as Wayne State University. At the age of 27, he published his first book of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust, and then attended the University of Michigan. There, he was taken under the wing of Anglo-American poet Wystan Hugh Auden, who soon became a huge influence in Hayden’s writing. He admired a variety of poets, Edna St. Vincent, Carl Sandburg, and Langston Hughes just to name a few, and developed an interest in African-American his...
Rhyme is shown in the first, second, third, fourth, eighth, and ninth stanzas. In the first stanza, “...town…” and “...down…” is an example of rhyme. In the second stanza, “...small…” and “...all…” represents rhyme. In the third stanza, rhyme is shown when the speaker says, “...few…” and “...grew…”. More examples in the poem include, “...leaf…” and “...grief…”, “...deep…” and “...sleep…”, and “...ding…” and
In terms of Romanticism, the idea of transcendence seems to be present in the poem in regard to the fact that the father-son relationship is beyond words. The relationship exists, but it is difficult to articulate. Also the idea that Hayden is rising to a deeper understanding of his relationship with his father is present. There are lines in the poem that state:
His ungratefulness as a child has now emerged on him, leaving the speaker ashamed of taking his father’s hard work for granted. In this poem he writes, “…fearing the chronic angers of that house//Speaking indifferently to him/who had driven out the cold…” (Hayden, 17). When he quotes “fearing chronic angers”, the speaker refers to his view of life as a child, and how he interpreted his father’s agony and self-sacrifice as anger towards him. With an apathetic and cold attitude that accompanied his youth, he did not recognize the love that his father had for him. Hayden also writes, “What did I know, What did I know…” (Hayden 17). Repeating this rhetorical question twice it is obvious that the speaker, now as an adult, feels deep remorse over the way he had treated his father. With a matured mind, Hayden came to the realization that love comes in all shapes and forms, and his father’s love was shown through his selfless
While most of us think back to memories of our childhood and our relationships with our parents, we all have what he would call defining moments in our views of motherhood or fatherhood. It is clearly evident that both Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden have much to say about the roles of fathers in their two poems as well. While the relationships with their fathers differ somewhat, both men are thinking back to a defining moment in their childhood and remembering it with a poem. "My Papa's Waltz" and "Those Winter Sundays" both give the reader a snapshot view of one defining moment in their childhood, and these moments speak about the way these children view their fathers. Told now years later, they understand even more about these moments.
For my poetry paper I chose to examine poetry from the family album. The family album stood out to me significantly because I thoroughly enjoyed all of the poems because I had a personal connection with it. Family has always been an important part of my life and I think this particular album speaks volume. This album has many levels to it, some deeper than others. I feel that from reading poetry, it expands our ability to think and form ideas that we would have not thought about before. Poetry gives readers the ability to make connections on a deeper level and see things from a different perspective. The two poems that spoke to me in this album specifically were “Those Winter Sundays” By Robert Hayden and “Begotten” by Andrew Hudgins. These two poems are both similar because they are from a son’s point of view, talking about their parent(s). “Those Winter Sundays” was one of my all-time favorite poems from this album because it shows a hard working father who is dedicated to his family, but does not get any recognition for his hard work.
The writer used rhymed the poem which makes it interesting. The vocabulary is simple. The poem is written in the free verse. He uses declarative sentences.
The poem is a quatrain, meaning that each of the three stanzas has four lines. Additionally, the rhyming pattern of each stanza is a/b/c/b. Through the organization of the poem, Smith was able to demonstrate society’s inability or refusal to recognize signs of depression. The reader, unaware of what was truly happening, took the poem literally until the last
Robert Frost is one of America’s most loved and respected poets. He did a great job capturing the hearts of his readers with his natural imagery and ability to use metaphors to reveal the truths that he was trying to convey. Frost’s life was filled with many struggles including several losses in his family. His early struggles would continue through his educational period, as he wouldn’t graduate from college. Frost traveled to Great Britain to gain some ideas on poetry, and then returned the America to begin writing again (Famous Poets and Poems 1). He would have great successes, and would win numerous awards and honors for his work. The purpose of this research project is to educate the reader of Robert Frost’s biographical information, his career as a writer, the awards and honors that he was able to obtain, and Frost’s writing style.
The poem is written in iambic pentameter with a clearly defined rhyme scheme throughout, although there are some variations
There is a pattern of stressed sounds such as “I”, “light”, and “spent” as well as unstressed such as “when”, “my”, and “is” that are all taken from the first line of the poem. Through the entire poem there is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, five stressed and five unstressed on each line, creating an iambic pentameter. Through the use of iambic pentameter Milton shows, his great ability and talent to write poems.