
Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” and Lucille Clifton’s “forgiving my father” are two similar poems that deal with the relationship between the narrator and his or her father figure. Both Hayden and Clifton are African American poets who were born and raised in Detroit and New York respectively. Hayden was separated from his parents at birth and was forced into foster care where he spent a good portion of his life, while as Clifton lived with both parents who did very well in providing for their large family. Whether it is a good or bad influence, almost even child grew up with some sort of a father figure who looked over them and somewhat influenced their life. Parents will do certain actions that kids may not always agree with and that normally starts arguments between the child and his or her parents. What many kid’s fail to realize is that their parents are the reason that they have all they do and that without them they would have a tremendous amount of trouble surviving at such a young age. There are many similarities and differences between Hayden’s and Clifton’s poems in that both have to do with children and the interactions between them and their father as they we growing up as a young child, but the differences show through the different type of relationship each child has with his or her father.

Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” talks about the relationship between the narrator and his father. The beginning of the poem talks about how the son’s father would wake up every Sunday morning and light a fire so that his family’s house would have heat for the day. The dad finds time to do little things around the house every single day, and he does all of this even though he has very intense work week every week. The most alarming line in the first stanza is the very last line and it just says, “No one ever thanked him.” (Line 5), and this is a perfect example as to how many people just take for granted the things that their parents do for them on a daily basis. It also talks about how the speaker never actually helped his father because he knew that his father would always do it for the house. Although the son acknowledged everything that his father did for him he never actually took the time to have full on conversations with his father in order to thank him for everything that he did, and for that he and his father did not have the closest relationship while he was growing up. Although the son’s father did a lot for him and he clearly loved him, the child was always fairly standoffish, and he never made much conversation with his father, and conversation is normally at the base of a strong relationship.

Lucile Clifton’s “Forgiving My Father” also describes the relationship that the female speaker has with her father and the troubles that they go through. Throughout this poem, the speaker addresses the issue about how her father plays a ghost like role in her life and that her was rarely there for her. Early in the poem the speaker says, “It is Friday, we have come to the paying of the bills. all week you have stood in my dreams like a ghost” (Lines 1-3). This shows how the girl’s father was a distant figure to her and left her with the bills to pay in order to keep the house running. The girl is left to collect what her father owes her for all of the years that he wasn’t there for her, and unfortunately there was nothing for her to collect. The speaker knows that her father has nothing but she also knows that if he did in fact have any money he would give it to his family. That is why I believe the girl does truly forgive her father for all that he has done, because she knows that if she keeps dwelling on the fact that her father was not there to support her that it would not get her anywhere in life, so she ended up settling with forgiving her father for his actions.

There are many aspects that relate the poems ‘Those Winter Sundays” and “forgiving my father” to each other and there are many reasons as to why the poems differ. The main relation between the two poems is that they both are concerning the relationship that the narrator has with his or her father. Hayden’s poem has the speaker as a male and Clifton’s poem has the speaker as a female though. In both of the poems, the speaker has a very rocky relationship with their father but it is for very different reasons. In “Those Winter Sundays” the speakers father has always been there for him and he does all that he can to make sure that his family can live comfortably, and the speaker doesn’t acknowledge everything that his father does which causes them to have a very rocky relationship. The speaker believes that he should have acknowledged his father much more in order to establish a better relationship, and he is very remorseful for his past actions or rarely creating conversation with his dad. In “forgiving my father” the speakers, father was the exact opposite in that he did nearly nothing to make sure that his family lived comfortably. He had no money and forced his daughter to have to pay the bills with the scarce funds that she had. He had left her waiting to collect for all the absence that he left in her life, and he consistently came up empty which caused the speaker to have a very rocky relationship with her “father figure”. Overall, while the majority of kids have a father figure that they can look up to in their life, there are many situations in which the father is not always there for them, or the kid does not appreciate what their father is truly doing which can cause a non-ideal relationship between child and father.
