Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” and Lucille Clifton’s “forgiving my father” are both poems told to describe a child’s relationship with their fathers. They are comparable by many ways, but also differ. Hayden’s poem is about family and memory, which is depicted through the intense diction and metaphors, to show a particular relationship with a father and a son. This relationship was based off of appreciation and affection, although the son was indifferent to his father’s dedication towards him and his regret. Clifton’s poem depicts a broken relationship between a father and a daughter. This piece shows how complex financial awareness. The main idea of this poem is to show that the daughter forgives her father even though he was irresponsbile depicted by how the father “owed” his daughter and wife. In both poems, “Those Winter Sundays” and “forgiving my father”, they are depicting how to solve the conflicts from their relationships. They both show feelings and use intense diction in order to do that. 

The diction in both short poems are alike because they use strong diction to describe the attitude towards their fathers from the children. In “Those Winter Sundays”, Hayden uses the weather, winter, to describe the most effective setting that a child feels great appreciation towards his or her father. The narrator in the perspective of a child’s view expresses empathy through the choice of words like “blueblack cold”, “banked fire blaze”, “cold splintering, breaking”, and “love’s austere” (lines 2-14, 2015). The phrase “blueback cold” means that it is really early and cold outside, it should make the readers envision being hit in the face by the cold wind in the dawn. “Banked fire blaze” is an alliteration that gives off the connotation of the cold and unhappy conditon of the speaker’s father.  The phrase “cold splintering” is figurative language to represent something abstract and tangible but really isn’t. Austere is defined as harsh, so saying that “love’s austere” is saying that the love is harsh and is not just about the heart but doing things while going unappreciated. These words and phrases that are used show that the author meant to give off an intense vibe towards their relationship. The strong diction in the poem, “forgiving my father” displays the harsh feelings that the daughter had towards her father. She started off by calling him an “old lecher”, then continues to say he is an “old liar”, and lastly she said “daddy old pauper old prisoner” (lines 9-20, 2015). Just analyzing the diction, one can conclude that using these words gives off a rough sense of anger towards her father. The relationship was broken because he didn’t provide enough for his daughter or wife. After he dies, she realizes that nothing good will come out of resenting him, so she starts to forgive him for all his wrong doings and not being able to provide enough for his family. The word choice in both of these poems are used to depict the difficult relationship between a father and his child. 

These two poems are shown as being different in which the children have very different attitudes towards their fathers. In “forgiving my father,” the attitude is more of a resentful but forgiving. The shift in attitude is noticed when at first she explained that “she wishes that he was rich just so that she can take it all and give it to her mother”, then to being more accepting by saying “what am i doing here collecting?” (line 21), which means that she has been waiting for too long when she now realizes that nothing is going to change the fact of who he used to be. On the other hand, in “Those Winter Sundays,” it came off as more empathetic and appreciative. The author used phrases like, “sundays too my father got up early”, “cracked hands that ached”, “No one ever thanked him”, and “speaking indifferently to him” (lines 1-10, 2015). His family nothing ever thanking him shows ingratitude towards the father. The indifferences being that the father wakes up early, then works hard, and provides for his family all that he possibly can, depictng sacrifice and his family doesn’t even show the slightest bit of appreciation. These phrases show that he or she is sympathetic towards his or her father for all that he does for him family. The main difference between these two poems is the attitude that is portrayed toward their fathers. In Clifton’s poem, the attitude is negative, more of a sympathetic towards the daughter. In Hayden’s poem, there is more of a positive connotation portrayed through some of the negativity. 

These two poems are alike and different in many ways but both relate to relationships with their family, one being good and one being bad. They are very much alike through the intense diction used to portray their attitudes. They are different because their relationships with their fathers are very much complicated but opposite of each other. Love, sacrifice, and youth are all the main ideas in the poem “Those Winter Sundays”, and “forgiving your father” is more about family, responsibilty, and forgiveness. Although these poems may have altering but similar concepts about family, they both teach a valuable lesson that you should never look down on your family and that you should be thankful and appreciative towards the ones that you love. 
