Poets often use their poems to explore the deeper meanings in life.  Their elegant arrangement of words can also be used to reflect back on one's life in search of a deeper meaning.  The poets Robert Hayden and Lucille Clifton use their poetic expertise to reflect back on their childhood.  Robert Hayden's poem "Those Winter Sundays" reflects on his childhood relationship with his father. Lucille Clifton does the same thing in her poem "forgiving my father."  While the two poets explore the same subject, they come to very different conclusions and present their findings in very different ways. We can see these differences in the settings of the two poems, the portrayal of the father and his relationship to his child and other family members, and such formal elements as word choice, typography, and structure.

Both poets take the time to look back on their childhood and reflect on a specific part of their childhood, more specifically their relationship with their fathers. The two poets choose to tell a story of their father on a specific day of the week.  In "Those Winter Sundays," as the title would suggest, Hayden chooses to focus on the actions of his father on Sunday mornings. Similarly, in "forgiving my father" Lucille Clifton focuses on her father's actions on a Friday. The two poets focusing on this specific day of the week makes it easier for the reader to visualize the poem and reflect it back onto their own lives. The reflection of the author on his or her childhood adds a dynamic to the story that would not have been possible otherwise. If the poems were a story of a father as opposed to this reflection the story would not have the same emotional intensity.

While both poets reflect on their childhood relationship with their father, we are presented with two very different relationships. In "Those Winter Sundays" we meet a father that is selfless and giving; however, in "forgiving my father" we are presented with a father who is selfish and taking.  Hayden looks back on the Sunday mornings when his father would wake up early to warm the house and polish the shoes before everyone else woke up. Sunday is mentioned presumably because that is the father's only day off work, but he still gets up early to make "banked fires blaze" (Hayden 5).  Hayden looks back at his father and reflects on how he never thanked his father for all the things he did for him.

Contrarily, in "forgiving my father" Clifton describes a difficult relationship with a father who was "the pocket that was going to open and came up empty any Friday" (Clifton 17). The "old lecher" (Clifton 9) was never able to pay his bills on time and Clifton blames him for her mother's "early grave" (Clifton 6).  He gave the mother all he had, which was nothing (Clifton 15) and that is why they now lay "side by side in debtors' boxes" (Clifton 23). The father in this poem is described as "old pauper", "old liar", "old prisoner" and "old dead man", these are not the terms of endearment one would expect to see in the relationship between a father and daughter. This is because the father in this poem is portrayed as a villain who cheated, lied and could not provide for his family.  This father is very selfish and takes what he can.  The daughter in the poem, presumably Clifton herself, feels like she needs to provide what she can for her dead mothers sake, and this is not a healthy parent  --  child relationship. As the title, "forgiving my father" suggests, Clifton has been holding a certain amount of anger towards her father since her childhood.  In contrast to Hayden's poem, this is a very different outcome of a similar situation. This difference makes for an interesting insight into how different childhoods can be, and how even among these differences the two poets still grew to be just that, poets.

The differences in attitude towards the poet's father is also demonstrated in the structure of the poems.  It is very obvious upon first glance of "forgiving my father" that there is no capitalization present in the poem. Even the title lacks capitalization. This lack of capitalization could be used as a tool to demean Clifton's father and take away some of his importance.  Also, not once in the poem does Clifton actually use the word "father" besides in the title.  He is referred to as "daddy" in a mocking way along with various other mocking names.  This lack of endearment once again takes away from her father's importance.  It mocks him, and takes away from his importance.  Paired with the lack of capitalization, it reflects Clifton's negative attitude towards her father.

In "Those Winter Sundays" the structural clues are a little less apparent but if you look closely you can see that Hayden's word choice reflects the affection he has for his father. The words in the beginning of the poem when describing the work the father is doing such as "blueblack" , "cracked" and "ached" are all very harsh sounding words that make the work the father is doing seem difficult and unpleasant. As the poem continues, and we begin to see Hayden's feelings toward his father, these harsh words give way to much softer words.  Words such as "polished", "shoes" and "know" appear in the second half of the poem where we begin to see Hayden's feelings.  We know that Hayden felt that he underappreciated his father in his childhood, and his word choice reflects those soft, heartfelt feelings.  The harsh words in the beginning signify the hard work his father did, and the softer words represent the feelings of love and admiration that Hayden now has for his father.  This word choice is very different than what we see in "forgiving my father" where there is absolutely no capitalization.  The different styles of writing reflect the different opinions the two poets had of their father.

Clifton and Hayden do an excellent job of using the power of words to express their emotions.  In just a handful of short lines we are given a detailed glimpse into the poet's feelings about their childhood.  In this similarity, however, there is also a difference.  The childhoods we are given access to harbor very different emotions toward their father.  The poets artfully articulate these emotions through their word choice, topography and structure. It is interesting to see that while these two poets had very different childhoods, they still grew up to work in the same profession. The profession that now helps them to articulate their emotions.
