
Both Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” and Lucille Clifton’s “forgiving my father” tell the story of two complex, struggling, working families. Both Hayden and Clifton grew up in African American, urban neighborhoods and used poetry to illustrate their childhood. Both poets use of diction allow the reader to recognize how both families had to work hard in order to survive. Both poems describe a poor working family that trouble with money as well as their relations with their fathers. Hayden writes his poem with an apologetic tone for not realizing how hard his father worked. Clifton’s poem on the other hand explains why she is trying to forgive her father. Both Hayden and Clifton’s poems focus on the difficulty of growing up in poverty and the importance of forgiveness. 

Robert Hayden begins his poem by describing how hard his father worked, no matter the circumstances. He tells of his father’s relentless working, “Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold”. The reader can tell that the son admires his father for his hard work but feels sympathy for the cold conditions and the fact that his father is working on the day of rest. Hayden then goes on to describe the father “then with cracked hands and ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fire blaze”. In this phrase the reader can visualize how over worked and tired the father really is. Even though the father’s body is worn down from a long week of working he still continues to get up and make a fire so his son is warm. In the next line of the poem, the reader can sense the son’s guilt for not recognizing his father’s tireless work, “No one ever thanked him” This last phrase of the clause is important because the son is finally recognizing how hard his father worked just to make sure that he was comfortable. He feels a sense of guilt and humiliation for never thinking of all his father had done and hopes his father can forgive him. Hayden then goes on to explain how the son wakes up to the warmth from his father and gets ready for a day of work but in the last clause of the poem Hayden describes his actions towards his father, “Speaking indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes as well”. In this phrase the author uses a tone of guilt for treating his father the way he did but also thankfulness.  Although he did not realize all that his father did for him when he was young he now understands his father’s sacrifices and asks for forgiveness. 

Clifton’s poem on the other hand explains why she is trying to forgive her father for what he has done. In the first line of the poem Clifton addresses her family’s small income, “it is Friday. we have come / to the paying of the bills”. She puts this in the beginning of the poem so that the reader is immediately familiar with their poverty. She goes on to explain how her father continuously seeks more time to pay the bills but now they are out of time, “there is no more time for you. There will / never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher/ old liar”.  In this clause the reader gets a glimpse into how the daughter really feels about her father. Clifton addresses her dad as ‘daddy’ which gives the impression that she and her father have a close relationship, but in the same phrase she uses negative words like ‘lecher’ and ‘liar’ to describe his as well. This choice of words tells the reader that she does not think highly of her father and in the next clause she continues to express her criticism, “I wish you were rich so I could take it all / and give the lady what she was due”. In this phrase the ‘lady’ the daughter addresses is her dead mother whom she wishes her father had given more too.  The daughter feels so strongly about wanting to give her mother what she deserves that she says she would rob her father of all he has. The reader can see the harsh comparison between her relationship with her dead mother and her father. Although she has been criticizing her father for the entirety of the poem, in the next line she begins to defend his actions and try to understand, “you gave her all you had / which was nothing. You have already given her / all you had”. The daughter realizes that her father had tried to give her mother what she deserved, he just couldn’t give her enough.  She tries to forgive her father for the way he treated her and her mother by sympathizing with him that he didn’t have anything to give them in the first place. At this point of the poem the daughter switches from blaming her father to blaming his shortcoming, “you are the poem that was going to open / and come up empty any Friday”. She understands that he is trying to provide for her but has come to terms that he will never be good enough. Clifton writes the poem about the father daughter relationship as the daughter is beginning to realize why she should forgive her father. The reader is able to see each emotion the daughter feels as she understands her father and why he has done what he has done. 
