Parents are many things to a child – a caregiver, a supporter, a nurturer, a friend, and more. A parent provides not only physical and material support for their children, but arguably more important, emotional support. Without this kind of support, children can become hostile and aggravated towards their parents and even the world later on in life. In both “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, and, “Forgiving My Father,” by Lucille Clifton, the speakers describe damaged relationships with either or both of their parents. They have expressed their inner emotions towards their parents and the relationship with them in their lives through the art of literature. Through these two poems which I have examined, both of the speakers display an array of negative and remorseful emotions towards their parents who neglected them emotionally throughout their childhoods. Through the use of emotional words and phrases, along with personal backgrounds and relationships, these poems tell two very different, yet still so similar stories of the family struggles experienced by both speakers. 

Language is used by poets to express their innermost, deepest feelings. Poets create moods through the words and phrases they use in order to form an emotional connection between their own experience and the reader. In “Those Winter Sundays,” Robert Hayden uses certain phrases and words that create a mood of loneliness, anger, and remorse. With words such as, “cracked,” (line 3) “splintering, breaking,” (line 6) “angers,” (line 9) and, “lonely,” (line 14), Hayden was able to create a mood of anger and weariness, but near the end changes to a mood of remorse and regret. Throughout the poem, beginning to end, Hayden uses these words to portray negative emotions towards his father which showcase the struggle the speaker experienced with learning and receiving love from his father during his childhood. While Hayden writes of a rocky relationship between the speaker and his father, Lucille Clifton’s poem describes her relationship with both of her parents, but still focuses on her father. 

Lucille Clifton tells a very different, but still a story of struggles within the speakers’ family.  Clifton uses many phrases and words that portray feelings of pure hatred the speaker has towards her father. She uses words and phrases such as, “like a ghost,” (line 4) “old lecher/old liar,” (lines 9-10) “bad bargain,” (line 19) and, “old pauper old prisoner, old dead man,” (line 20) to express her emotions toward her father about what he had done to the speaker and her mother for their entire lives. The speaker is not just using these words and phrases to describe the scene or her life, but she is directing them all at her father. This proves that the speaker has strong feelings of hate for her father and that she loathes him. Even if she forgives him in the end, she shows that her feelings towards her father will never go away. Both poems end with the realization that neither can change what has happened between their families. Both stories end in similar ways.

These two poems are written to each tell a story of the relationship each speaker has with his/her parents. Each story is different, but is common around the theme that their parents have struggled to show them love and emotional support through their childhood. In “Those Winter Sundays,” the speaker tells the readers of how his father always worked, even on Sundays which is supposed to be reserved for religious reasons, the father still gets up early to work so that his family has heat in their home (Landau). The speaker refers to his father, simply as “father,” which is more formal than most others would refer to their personal fathers as (Landau). From the beginning of the poem, it is easy to see that the relationship the son has with his father is under strain as he cannot even express love in the first few lines of the poem. At the end of the first stanza, the speaker states that, “no one ever thanked him.” (line 5) which says that even though the father worked endlessly for the family, he was never shown any appreciation for providing them with warmth. In the second stanza, the speaker continues with how his father worked to make the house warm, and when it was, he woke everybody up. The speaker states how he fears the “chronic angers of that house,” (line 9) which maybe signifies the broken relationship between the son, the father, and the rest of the family, or even their socioeconomic status in the world (Landau). The poem ends the story in the last stanza when the speaker acknowledges that his father made the house warm and polished his good shoes as well. In the last few lines, the speaker finally becomes aware of what his father was doing the whole time. The father was not supporting his family or the son emotionally at all. The speaker is angry at his father for never showing emotional love and support. What the speaker didn’t know is that the father was busy working and providing for his family because he loved them. He didn’t outwardly express love, which did take an emotional toll on the speaker, but he did everything out of love for his family. The last few lines of the poem reflect on the internal conflict the speaker is facing when he finally realizes this, and is overtaken by feelings of regret that he didn’t realize it sooner. Similarly, Lucille Clifton writes of complications within the speaker’s own family, but it is still a different and unique situation. 

In “Forgiving My Father,” the speaker describes a different kind of bad relationship she has with her father. The speaker tells the reader the story of her childhood, explaining how her father had nothing to give her family. He couldn’t provide for the family or pay the bills. The speaker wishes that she was rich so that she could care for her mother and provide for the family in the way that her father should’ve. In the first stanza, the speaker is saying that it is pay day for the bills and she is a good daughter, so she waits for the money that her mother needs. That signifies that there were always problems with money in her family. Every week when it was time to pay the bills, her parents would fight about money, and she would side with her mother because she was a good daughter (Aull). 

In the second stanza, the speaker goes on to say that there’s no more time for her father to get money, he’s out of time now. She refers to him as an “old lecher,” (line 9) here, which means someone who desires sex excessively, which could signify that her father sexually abused her or her mother. After that, the speaker says that she wishes her father were rich so that she could give the money to her mother who deserved to live above the poverty, unlike her father. Then, there is a transition in the story where the speaker realizes that her father was “the only son of a needy father,” (line 12) meaning her father’s father was a needy man who didn’t provide for his family either. Her father grew up in a household without resources or money, so he never learned how to provide for a family. He never learned how to take care of and work for money in order to get out of poverty and provide a good life for his family (Aull). The speaker at this point realizes that her father couldn’t help the way he was. The speaker says that her father gave them all he had, but it was nothing because he was never taught anything or given anything when he was being raised. He had nothing to give his family. 

In the third stanza, the speaker goes on about how her father would never have any money ever and he would never be able to provide for their family. The speaker then says that her parents were each other’s bad bargain, not hers, which is her realization that she shouldn’t be concerned with money or matters that are her parents (Aull). She can’t help who her father is but she can’t be concerned with that anymore. She has to let her parents deal with their own problems that they created together. In the last few lines of the poem, the speaker finally comes to terms with the fact that both of her parents died in debt and they are forever condemned to be poor. She realizes then that it is pointless to hold a grudge against her father because he is dead now. She can’t change his past or her own past, but she can move on and let memories remain memories. The takeaway in both poems is a realization that the past can’t be changed. Parents can strongly influence how their children turn out later in life by the simple acts they perform early on. 

Parents play many different roles in their children’s lives. They hold the power that determines what kind of a person their child will be. They determine their own fate in their child’s life. A parent’s emotional support is one of the most important aspects of a child’s life. Without that support and love, that child can grow up with feelings of hatred or guilt towards their parents. Many people may have felt this way towards their parents while growing up, and these two poems capture the different, yet similar feelings when a family is struggling. Whether it be lack of emotional support and love, or maybe financial reasons, when parents emotionally or physically neglect their children, the outcomes can be years of pent up frustration along with remorse. These poets were simply brave enough to put their lives and feelings onto paper for the world to read about. Each poem is its own story, and while both are very different, they share common themes of families struggling to connect with each other. Being a parent means so much more than providing materials for children. It means showing children the love and support they need to grow up to be kind, loving, and caring adults. 
