As time goes on and people mature, they may come to realizations that they would not have had they not grown up in the way that they had.  This theme is prevalent in both Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” and Lucille Clifton’s “Forgiving my Father”.  Throughout both of these shot poems, both Hayden and Clifton recall their fathers and come to realize something that they would not have a long time ago.  However, if they had not grown up the way they had, they would not have had these realizations.  The speaker in “Those Winter Sundays” recalls his father as being caring and uses alliteration to highlight his father’s struggles and sacrifices, whereas the speaker in “Forgiving my Father” recalls her father as selfish.  Even though each of the speakers remembers their fathers in very different lights, when put together, these poems exemplify why people should cherish the people in their lives, and in some cases forgive those that are close to them, while they are still around to be cherished or forgiven.  

In “Those Winter Sundays”, it is clear that the speaker’s father did a lot for him and that his father loved him very much.  The poem starts with the line “Sundays too my father got up early” (1).  Although this line may seem insignificant, it sets the stage for the rest of the poem.  Hayden’s use of the word “too” signifies that his father wakes up early everyday, even on Sundays, which are supposed to be a day of rest.  The reason that the speaker’s father would wake up early on Sundays was to make a fire to warm the house and give his son a comfortable environment to wake up to.  

Hayden uses alliteration to make the readers sense what his father went through to give him a better life.  The us of alliteration to draw attention to the sacrifices the speaker’s father made is apparent in within the first few lines:

And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold

and with his cracked hands that ached 

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. (2-5)

Hayden uses words such as cold, cracked, and ached “evoke the harshness of the speaker’s father’s life” (Landau).  This harshness and sacrifice is further exaggerated through the description of the father’s hands as being cracked and in pain.  Even though his father was tired from when he worked on the weekdays, he would still go out of his was to wake up early on the day of rest to make sure the house was warm when Hayden got up.  

The reader gets a much different view of a father in Lucille Clifton’s poem “Forgiving my Father”.  Within the first couple of lines, it becomes clear to the reader that the speaker is not fond of her father: “all week you have stood in my dreams / like a ghost, asking for more time” (3-4).  The word ghost carries with it a negative connotation, making the readers begin to see that the speaker and her father were not close.  The word ghost also implies that her father is dead and, instead of telling him all of the things she is writing about, she is thinking out loud upon reminiscing.  The hostility between the speaker and her father continues with how she calls him names: 

There will 

Never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher 

Old liar.  I wish you were rich so I could take it all

And give the lady what she was due (8-11).

Not only does the speaker continue her hostility towards her father by calling him a lecher and a liar, but she outwardly admits to taking her mother’s side in the disputes that he and her mother used to have.  Even though these lines seem to be rooted in anger towards her father, the speaker does call her father “daddy”.  The use of the word daddy has a more affectionate tone than the word father or even dad.  The usage of the word daddy is significant because, while she is scolding her father, she is calling him by a name that suggests she might still have some affection towards him.  This theme develops through the end of the poem when the speaker has her realization.

As the speaker in “Forgiving my Father” continues to recall her father and the many disputes he and her mother had, she begins to forgive him.  The first sign of forgiveness is when she begins to realize that her father’s actions and irresponsibility might not have been entirely his fault:

But you were the only son of a needy father,

the father of a needy son;

you gave her all you had

which was nothing.  You have already given her 

all you had. (12-16)

This passage marks the speaker’s realization that her father was not entirely at fault for the disputes that overcome her memories.  She recognizes that he was raised in a household similar to the household he created for her, therefore, he did not know better.  According to the philosopher, David Whyte, as quoted by Maria Popova, “To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt, to mature and bring to fruition an identity that can put its arm, not only around the afflicted one within but also around the memories” (Whyte qtd. Popova).  This is exactly what the speaker comes to realize, a sense of forgiveness towards her father, even though it is too late for him to hear her say it.

By the end of  “Those Winter Sundays”, it is clear that the speaker has come to a realization that fills him with regret.  The beginning of this realization that the speaker begins to have is first apparent at the end of the fifth line: “No one ever thanked him” (5).  This line comes directly after the speaker describes his father’s hands as being cracked and aching from the work he had been doing during the weekdays, signifying some sort of remorse.  This line also seems to come out of nowhere and in a sense “stands out as if it were alone, a separate thought, an afterthought” (Landau) when the speaker begins to look back on his childhood and relationship with his father.  This makes this line stand out against the others and draws the reader’s attention to the idea that the speaker regrets not being more thankful for what his father did for him as a child.  This theme comes back at the end of the poem: 

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know 

of love’s austere and lonely offences (10-14)

Hayden brings back the theme of regret initially by saying that he had spoken indifferently to his father who had gotten up early to warm the house and even polished his shoes.  This references line five when the speaker says that no one had ever thanked his father.  Hayden also repeats the phrase “what did I know”.  This repetition “allows the reader to acknowledge the terrible sense of sadness and regret the speaker now feels” (Landau).  The speaker now realizes that he should have been more appreciative for all that his father had done for him, because even the smallest of acts were out of love.

Both “Those Winter Sundays” and “Forgiving my Father” show the realizations that come with maturation.  The speaker in Clifton’s comes to realize that her father’s actions might not have been entirely his fault and comes to forgive him, even though it is too late to tell him.  The speaker in Hayden’s poem comes to realize that he should have been more appreciative of his father and all that he did for him growing up.  It is unclear whether or not the speaker’s father is dead or alive in “Those Winter Sundays”, but when put together, these poems teach the reader that they should cherish the people in their lives while they’re still around—if they do not, it will be too late.

In order to revise this paper, I had to find a second secondary source about either the poems or something pertaining to what I am trying to prove.  I originally only had the source by Daniel Landau and added the whole work cited page because my original paper lacked one.  I also went through and changed all the places where I had either written “Clifton’s father” or “Hayden’s father” to “the speaker’s father” because neither of the poems explicitly states that these poems are about themselves (even though some people assume they are).  I reread the paper multiple times to make sure there are minimal spelling and grammatical errors and rewrote some of the sentence for clarity.  I also added to my intro paragraph to include how each f the speakers remembers their fathers.  I also included the use of alliteration in Hayden’s poem to bring attention to his father’s sacrifices and struggles in the intro so it does not feel like I randomly threw a paragraph about it in the middle of my paper.
