“Those Winter Days” by Robert Hayden and “forgiving my father” by Lucille Clifton compare and contrast regarding family relationships. Both describe different family dynamics but similar in fatherly circumstances. The first similarity that stood out to me between these two are the authors. They are both African American and grew up with rather harsh backgrounds. Both Hayden and Clifton put emphasis on emotion throughout their poems. They change the word choices to match the tone and scenario in every stanza. Personally, I found both poems a bit difficult to understand right away. Because of these author's unique writing choices and word selections each poem requires multiple reads. Through repetition of the love from the fathers, the reader can understand the relationship of two families in each poem.

           “Those Winter Sundays” tells a story from a sons point of view regarding his father. He tells how his father has long, exhausting work weeks and rises early every morning. He has the fire lit and his son’s shoes polished before he leaves. From the very first line, “Sundays too my father got up early”, Hayden is telling the reader the father is hard working every day of the week. Through the word “too” Hayden is emphasizing the pain and sacrifice the father makes for his son and family. Sundays are well known universally as days of rest. Understanding the first stanza gives the reader the insight of how hard this man works. We know he works in the cold, outdoors and very early every day of the week. The stanza ends with “Noone ever thanked him”(Hayden, 5), this shows there's tension within the household. The reader is only introduced to a son, no other member of the family. The son shows he is angry and frustrated with the dynamic in his household. “Fearing the chronic angers of the house”(Hayden, 9), tells us the son is afraid of his own home. The reader is never told exactly why he's afraid but hints there may be marriage issues. The entire poem itself is very cold. The speaker shows the father is absent from physically loving his son. This may be because the speaker is young and does not hear to words “I love you” every day. The reader gets the impression the son is disrespectful and greedy due to lack of physical love from father. The father is busy and does all he can to keep the household running smoothly but the son feels emotionless when it comes to love. But in the end of the poem the speaker may have grown up and realizes all the gestures his father made was his way of expressing his love. His father had given him all that he could in the end. The second to last line, “What did I know. What did I know” (Hayden, 13) proves the son was young and unaware of all that the father did, as he grew older he grasped an understanding of his father's ways. Robert Hayden does a great job of beginning the poem with sharp words and slowly transferring them to softer words towards the end of the poem. Hayden does this on purpose as it fits the son and father change in relationship. First very tense, but then an understanding and mutual love at the end. I also noticed the title of the poem, “Those winter days” could have a strategic place in the poem. I figure the poem takes place in the winter time, because of this the son is very lonely this time of year. The winter time brings the idea of family togetherness, the son is feeling absent from this feeling. Throughout the rest of the year the father does not change rather the sons perception of family.

           The poem “forgiving my father” by Lucille Clifton is the opposite of “Those Winter Days” by Robert Hayden. Further, the narrator displays resentment towards her father, showing clear anger and disappointment with the way he has been all her life. The words Clifton choses tells the readers the daughter in the poem is willing to forgive the father even after the financial crisis he put the family through. Clifton uses words such as bills,paydays,bargain, and debtors to clearly show why she was angry with her father. For example saying “I wish you were so rich so I could take it all and give the lady what she was due”(Clifton, 7) is in other words saying, he was emotionally abusing her mother and she didn't like the treatment at all. Towards the end of the poem, the daughter clearly shows forgiveness despite the “debtor’s boxes” she was left with. All the father left to his daughter was nothing but bad memories forever ingrained into her subconscious. She uses the simile, “All week you have stood in my dreams like a ghost asking for more time…”(Clifton, 4) to reveal to the readers that he has haunted her in a way that he was begging her for more time. Therefore, saying that at this point in the poem, it was up to the daughter whether to forgive him or not. 

           I chose these two poems because they are very similar in writing style but showed two very different emotions. They might be so similar because of the authors and their own personal upbringings. 

           These poems touch on a topic of children appreciating their parents. Understanding from a young age all that entails with raising a family and creating a household. Another similarity may be poverty and kids growing up too fast on their own.
