In the two pieces of writings, “forgiving my father” by Lucille Clifton, and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, both offer an insight of what their fathers meant to them through their emotions and feelings that they have created from growing up and developing an opinion on their fathers. Many people think that you must love your father because he is your father. However, that is not true because actions and decisions develop opinions in people. In “forgiving my father”, the narrators opinion of her father is very disappointed and aggravated, yet accepting of who he was. In “Those Winter Sundays”, the narrator grew up appreciating her father for all the things he did for the family when he grew up. The two fathers in both poems had different aspects of how they acted and lived as the narrator grew up in their presence, which led to them having very different opinions of their fathers showing how it is not always necessary that you have to love your father.

“forgiving my father” was a piece of writing that focused on the negatives. The narrator was upset with how her father was when she grew up. Her father never had the money to pay the bills, and her mother and herself always had to supply the money. In line 10, it states “i wish you were rich so i could take it all” (Lucille 525). The narrator was aggravated that her dad never had anything and was always needing something because her father was “the son of a needy father” (Lucille 525). However, her attitude towards her father changed to accepting him for who he was because he never had anything. At the end of the poem, she sits waiting to collect anything from her passed father, but she knows that there will be nothing because her father had nothing to give. This piece helps show that even though you have a father, does not mean that you have to love him. 

The contrasting piece “Those Winter Sundays”, shows a more appreciative and understanding tone when expressing their feelings about the narrators father. In this poem, the narrator describes the basic chores that his father performed on the cold and wintery morning before everyone else. In the last stanza, Hayden describes how he did not even acknowledge or appreciate what his father had done for him and his family by stating that he spoke indifferently to his father “who had driven out the cold” (Hayden 524). This important line shows how the narrator processed how much his father actually meant to him for all the little things that his father had done. In the last lines, the narrator realizes and appreciates all that his father has done for him. 

Both poems are about a child and their father, and one might think that it is important to love your father. However, that is not true just to the fact that you have a father. In “forgiving my father” the father clearly did not provide enough or give anything that the narrator needed due to the love lacking expressions and anger and aggravation that was portrayed in the writing of the poem. However, in “Those Winter Sundays” the narrator realized the importance and positive stigma that the father had exhibited from growing up. Loving your father can be determined by the feelings and emotions created by the fathers actions and decisions that play a role on the the children.  
