Comparing Robert Hayden's Poems 'Middle Passage And Those Winter Sundays'

483 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Those winter sundays poetry essay

Robert Hayden recovered what had been lost of the African American experience in the following poems: “Middle Passage”, Homage to the Empress of the Blues”, and “Those Winter Sundays”. In his poem “Middle Passage” Hayden talks about the suffering and the desire of restoration in African Americans through the experience they endured. Hayden uses his poems as a way to communicate his experience and escape what is happening around him the best he can. “I cannot sleep, for I am sick with fear, but writing eases fear a little” (Hayden, 1962, p. 2373), he cannot get away from what is happening around him, and he cannot ignore the pain that is so familiar, but he is able to escape to his own mind. In his poem, Hayden does not only identify the pain …show more content…

2375). In Hayden’s poem “Homage to the Empress of the Blues”, Hayden shows how the pain and suffering can be expressed through art in the form of dance. This is the narrator’s way of expressing themselves and freeing oneself from the pain and suffering and providing an escape for everyone. “She came out on the stage in ostrich feathers, beaded satin, and shone that smile on us and sang” (Hayden, 1962, p. 2377), at this moment nothing matters to the narrator and the others onlookers. This is a way of escaping, for everyone involved. In “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden reflects on what has been lost of the African American experience by reflecting on Sunday mornings. He recalls his father getting up early to warm the house before he woke him. Hayden (1962) recalls “when the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress”. This appears to be a pleasant memory, however, Hayden then goes on to say, “fearing the chronic angers of that house” (Hayden, 1962, p. 2377). This anger could come from the hard work that his father endures throughout the week with “cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday” (Hayden, 1962, p.

Show More
Related

  • Comparing Two Poems 'Summer Solstice And The Mill'

    574 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are diseases in the world that we can touch and see and there are those which we cannot feel or see. Depression and suicide are one of the few that are not physical diseases but mental. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of deaths in America, and 20-25% of Americans eighteen and older have depression. The two poems ‘Summer Solstice, New York City’ by Sharon Olds, and ‘The Mill’ by Edwin Arlington Robinson are both discussing the different ways that suicide and depression can affect an individual. The first poem by Sharon Olds goes into details of suicide prevention whereas the poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson goes into the details of how suicide and death affect the loved ones of the deceased.

    Read More

  • Poets and Their Fathers: Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

    1383 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, “My Father as a Guitar” by Martin Espada, and “Digging” by Seamus Heaney are three poems that look into the past of the authors and dig up memories of the authors fathers. The poems contain similar conflicts, settings, and themes that are essential in helping the reader understand the heartfelt feelings the authors have for their fathers. With the authors of the three poems all living the gust of their life in the 1900’s, their biographical will be similar and easier to connect with each other.

    Read More

  • Those Winter Sundays

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    "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.

    Read More

  • A Raisin in the Sun: The Duality of African-America, George Murchison and Joseph Asagai

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, – this longing to attain self-consciousness, manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message f...

    Read More

  • New Negro

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... the development of black literature, and The Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, marked a turning point for this literature. Prior to this time, books by African Americans were primarily read by other African Americans. With the Renaissance, African American literature as well as black fine art and performance art began to be absorbed into mainstream American culture. What is important in reading this literature, or listening to the music, is to fully understand the underlying meaning behind the words; the sorrowful experiences of the writers, the insistence in self-definition, the search for self-expression, and self-determination, and a striving after what Alain Locke called "spiritual emancipation." The African American history so rich and deep rooted with sorrow, grief, and struggles have and still influence African artist all over the United States.

    Read More

  • Langston Hughes' Poetry

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    The contradiction of being both black and American was a great one for Hughes. Although this disparity was troublesome, his situation as such granted him an almost begged status; due to his place as a “black American” poet, his work was all the more accessible. Hughes’ black experience was sensationalized. Using his “black experience” as a façade, however, Hughes was able to obscure his own torments and insecurities regarding his ambiguous sexuality, his parents and their relationship, and his status as a public figure.

    Read More

  • Those Winter Sundays Internal Conflict

    435 Words  | 1 Pages

    The central conflict in Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays”, is the unfortunate realization that the speaker never truly thanked or appreciated his father’s sacrifices when he was a child. After growing up, taking on responsibilities, and achieving a rehabilitated understanding of the world through experience, Hayden expresses his ingratitude that often accompanies with youth. The first line of the first stanza writes, “Sundays too my father got up early/and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (Hayden, 17). Out of these two lines, the word “too” is filled with importance because Sunday’s are dedicated to either religious practices, or rest for a working man. Fortunately, this was not his father’s case as his father would wake up early in order to perform his loving and self-sacrificing duties.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Suffering Mirrored By Nikky Finny

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    African-Americans’/ Affrilachians’ Suffering Mirrored: How do Nikky Finney’s “Red Velvet” and “Left” Capture events from the Past in order to Reshape the Present? Abstract Nikky Finney (1957- ) has always been involved in the struggle of southern black people interweaving the personal and the public in her depiction of social issues such as family, birth, death, sex, violence and relationships. Her poems cover a wide range of examples: a terrified woman on a roof, Rosa Parks, a Civil Rights symbol, and Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, to name just a few. The dialogue is basic to this volume, where historical allusions to prominent figures touch upon important sociopolitical issues. I argue that “Red Velvet” and “Left”, from Head off & Split, crystallize African-Americans’ /African-Americans’ suffering and struggle against slavery, by capturing events and recalling historical figures from the past.

    Read More

  • Neo-Slave Narratives and Octavia Butler

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gates Jr., Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company , Inc. , 2004. Print.

    Read More

  • Commentary on Robert Hayden Poetry

    943 Words  | 2 Pages

    This is a short lyric poem about the speaker’s childhood. The speaker remembers how his father made all those sacrifices for him. The poem’s view point compares that of a boy and the perspective of him as an adult. According to the first line, there is an action that precedes the anecdote. As the poem suggests, the father wakes up early every day of the week to do work, including Sundays. Robert Hayden, the author, uses imagery and diction to help describe the scene.

    Read More

  • Comparing Poems 'I, Too And' Theme For English B

    973 Words  | 2 Pages

    The civil rights movement may have technically ended in the nineteen sixties, but America is still feeling the adverse effects of this dark time in history today. African Americans were the group of people most affected by the Civil Rights Act and continue to be today. Great pain and suffering, though, usually amounts to great literature. This period in American history was no exception. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer before, during, and after the Civil Rights Act and produced many classic poems for African American literature. Hughes uses theme, point of view, and historical context in his poems “I, Too” and “Theme for English B” to expand the views on African American culture to his audience members.

    Read More

  • Margaret Walker

    1309 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.

    Read More

  • Black Poetry

    2173 Words  | 5 Pages

    Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.

    Read More

  • Perseverance in Mother to Son and The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes

    836 Words  | 2 Pages

    The founding fathers constructed the Constitution with the notion that “all men were created equal.” However, many minorities still struggle for the same rights and opportunities as others. “Mother to Son” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” are poems written by Langston Hughes that use symbolism to exemplify the struggles of African Americans as they attempt to persevere through adversity. Hughes utilizes the stairs in “Mother to Son” and the rivers in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” as his main modes of symbolism.

    Read More

  • Langston Hughes Lament For Dark Peoples

    841 Words  | 2 Pages

    Langston Hughes’s “Lament for Dark Peoples” consists of a brooding three quatrain scene in which the speaker grieves a time before racial oppression. What is special about this poem is that it brings to the table a sense of solidarity between Blacks and Native Americans, who both have deep histories of terrorization from whites. The poem in itself demonstrates a recollection of life prior to white supremacy, but its core reflects the true loss and consequences of oppression on people of color. The poem initiates with the establishment that there was a loss of identity experienced by the two oppressed groups mentioned: “red” and “black”, or indigenous Americans and Africans.

    Read More

More about Comparing Robert Hayden's Poems 'Middle Passage And Those Winter Sundays'

Open Document