One of the features that differentiates poetry from other groups of literature is the way it utilizes the melodic potential of language. Not only do poets play with the variations of words, they play with the sounds of words, and by taking advantages of the fact that hearing something expressed can be as pleasant as thinking about it. The poet - in this sense, is sometimes considered to be a musician, making a rhyming, rhythmic kind of music with words, and sometimes playing off their sounds to complement what they mean. In other words, when it seems the sounds and senses of a poem reinforces its meaning in some way, the effects are usually striking. As a result, this essay is going emphasize on several poems that I find intriguing discussing the senses and sounds to formulate my own interpretations. A brutal direct poem that’s very powerful is Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” (Hayden, 551). In this poem, the writer employs concrete specifics and sensory descriptions to create a literal image for readers to resourcefully create. For example, at the beginning of “Those Winter Sunders” the speaker reflects back on the coldness of his childhood. He remembers the “cold” in both straightforward and figurative terms. At first, he focuses on the Sundays on how his father would wake up early to get the fire going before walking the rest of the house. However, the poem is really about how the speaker laments the fact that growing up he never really understood the meaning of his father’s actions – how they were the way he communicated his love for the family, for the speaker. In addition to this, the concrete specific words in the poem also show how the speaker comes to finally appreciate on how the father gave himself to ke... ... middle of paper ... ...has little to no choice in the matter as your path in life is already created. In this case, I am a yuppie because I grew up a yuppie in the suburb demographics of South Orange County, California. Works Cited Hayden, Robert. “Those Winter Sundays.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Mayer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012. 551. Print Farries, Helen. “Magic of Love.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Mayer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012. 581. Print Slavitt, David. “Titanic.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Mayer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012. 620. Print Simpson, Louis. “In The Suburbs.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Mayer. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012. 626. Print
Harmon, William, William Flint Thrall, Addison Hibbard, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 11th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.
Updike, John. "A & P" Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
The diction helps exemplify the imagery even better, the reader can sense how the speaker’s home felt like as well as the father’s hard work. The speaker awakens to the "splintering, breaking" of the coldness. This allows the audience to feel a sense of how cold it was in the speaker’s house. One can infer that the poem is set in a cold city or town during the winter, which gives the reader an idea of how cold it might be. “Slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house,” represents how the father battles to keep the family away from harm of the cold and darkness, implying that the speaker grew up in poverty. His father’s “cracked hands” shows how hard his father worked to keep his family safe.
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.
Updike, John. "A & P." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 2nd Edition. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: St. Martin's Press, 1990. 407-411.
Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
Rich, Adrienne. “Diving into the Wreck” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013.1010-1012. Print.
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
Abrams, M.H. and Greenblatt, Stephen eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Seventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.
Has one ever wondered how to thank someone who was the single most influential person during those fragile first eighteen years of life, and that was there to contain the solidified inconsistencies of society by showing constant love with no conditions that will never erode its stance? In Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing it shows Robert Hayden a poet as an angry child in an annoyed household had no idea what the meaning of unconditional love was, yet as a man who reflected on that experience of perpetual love only then realized the strength of its hold. Moreover, the author not only realized such to write a poem of apology and thanks, but to acknowledge to his father and the world that he is experiencing this “austere and lonely office.” Understanding today that economic inequality can cause a revolt, and inequality among the parents can cause a rupture in the family unit. In a poem called “Those Winter Sundays” the author, Robert Hayden, not only entrusts the parent, child and child, parent relationship, but the poem rings such as to be a connective tissue to society as a whole.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1989.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Updike, John. "A & P." Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
The speakers and audience in poem are crucial elements of the poem and is also the case in these poems. In the poem Untitled, it can be argued that the poem is being written by Peter based on what his father might say to him...
Many writers use powerful words to portray powerful messages. Whether a writer’s choice of diction is cheerful, bitter, or in Robert Hayden’s case in his poem “Those Winter Sundays,” dismal and painful, it is the diction that formulates the tone of the piece. It is the diction which Hayden so properly places that allows us to read the poem and picture the cold tension of his foster home, and envision the barren home where his poem’s inspiration comes from. Hayden’s tumultuous childhood, along with the unorthodox relationships with his biological parents and foster parents help him to create the strong diction that permeates the dismal tone of “Those Winter Sundays.” Hayden’s ability to both overcome his tribulations and generate enough courage