Child-Parent Relationship in Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

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.

This lyric gives a definitive idea as to who Robert Hayden was as a child. Fast forward as a man, Hayden was the first black American poet to be a consultant on poetry to the Library of Congress. Starting in the 1930s he researched black history for the Federal Writers' Project in his native city of Detroit Michigan. While studying at the University of Michigan Hayden was influenced by W. H. Auden and Stephen Vincent Benet which wrote about slavery and black men fighting in the civil war of United States of America. This influence won Robert Hayden the Hopwood Award in 1942. Later, he graduated from college in ...

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Hayden, Robert Earl. "Those Winter Sunday's." Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New Jersey: Pearson, 2012. 382. Print.

Johnson, Jeannine. "An overview of "Those Winter Sundays"." Poetry for Students. Detroit: Gale. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 25 April 2014. .

"Robert E(arl) Hayden." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Biography in Context. Web. 24 April 2014. .