An author's past vastly shapes the works they create. Robert Hayden and Lucille Clifton have similar backgrounds but experienced vastly different home lives in which they used to create poems that resemble each other. "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden and "forgiving my father" by Lucille Clifton both discuss the speaker's resentment toward their fathers but are also extremely different. Contrast in their tones and underlying themes show how the speakers in "Those Winter Sundays" and "forgiving my father" are trying to move through the pain and come to terms with their past. The parental involvement in the pieces shapes the children's current perceptions of love.

Though the two poems show speakers who feel negatively toward their father, the tone at which they describe their discrepancies vary. Hayden creates a tone in "Those Winter Sundays" that shows the speaker having a sort of confusing realization about his childhood. The use of past tense verbs convey that these events are memories the speaker is reflecting on. At first it seems to be a regretful message but with further context and analysis it can be seen as a discovery that the speaker is not very fond of. When he talks about a memory of his father warming the house early on Sunday mornings and follows it with the phrase "No one ever thanked him" (5) the speaker seems to be feeling regretful that he wasn't more appreciative of his father's efforts. Sundays are a symbolic day of rest which indicates that, even on his day off, the speaker's father would make sure the family was comfortable but was never acknowledged for it. Then he mentions that his father would polish his "good shoes" (12); another action that could be seen as a caring service the father should have received gratitude for but according to the speaker did not. This is important because before the reader is able to put all of the information together, they see the father as a caring figure. The fear the speaker has of his father, which he expresses later on in the poem, shows how the father's lack of involvement and short temper caused him to act in an unthankful manner. His view of love formed from his father's detached demeanor. The reader then sees that the speaker does not lack in giving his father recognition, but his father's negative attitude makes him think acting indifferently and cautious is normal. 

The text in between those two pieces of information is what changes the tone of the poem. He says:

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him, (6-10)

"Chronic angers of that house" (9) specifically stands out. He is adamant to mention the noises of the house but the entire rest of the poem is clearly about his father's actions. The house and its "chronic angers" (9) acts as a symbol for the father. He didn't fear the house, he feared his father's short temper and spoke to him indifferently as to not upset him in any way. This symbolism shows how the speaker comes to the realization of his father's downfalls. As he comes to terms with how he acted as a child he starts to further understand how his father's actions made him cautious and, to an extent, ungrateful. The speaker first needed to understand he acted passive toward his father as a child in order to avoid outbursts from him, before he could move past his misconceptions of what love looked like which he described in line 14 as "austere and lonely." The speaker learns through his discoveries that his lonely and disconnected perception of love was shaped through his father's actions. His father seemed to be absent in many ways. He may have done well with providing his family with necessities, but he was not available to the speaker for moral support and showing love like a parent should. This lack of involvement made the speaker view love as solitary and conditional. He thought it meant providing through services but not showing compassion for one another mentally.

The poem is all past tense and indirect toward the father because at the time the speaker didn't know any better. He didn't understand that it wasn't normal to have to be that cautious as a child but he realizes it in the present and because of it shows resentment. The last two lines "What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices?" (13-14) reinforce this. He didn't know how his father acted was wrong, he didn't know what love was supposed to look like and at that moment it was lonesome and confined. The past tense "did" in "What did I know" (13) implies that he now does know what love looks like and the difference in how he used to view it. This realization is what brings to surface a resentment toward his father. This is important because he is able to change his view on love by the end of the poem. He realizes he did not know what love truly looked like and his father's actions were definitely not a representation of them. 

When looking at Robert Hayden's life, parallelisms can be made between him and the speaker. Hayden witnessed physical and verbal fights between his foster parents in his early childhood years that caused him to carry depression with him. Hayden is known to draw on things he personally experienced and though the speaker isn't necessarily him, it helps the reader to understand the angst and negativity he has toward his father which is the underlying reason he doesn't thank him for the tasks he completes (Biography.com). 

"forgiving my father" seems to share similar qualities to "Those Winter Sundays" in a sense that Clifton produced a monologue in which the speaker is addressing her father in a negative tone. The tone when examined more closely, however, is vastly different from the speaker's in Hayden's poem. Instead of the speaker coming to a conclusion, she addresses her weariness of her past relationship with her father in a harsh way as to indicate she is finally moving past it. The title is the first signal of her moving forward, specifically because of the word "forgiving" which itself is a present tense verb. Throughout the entire poem the reader reiterates her disgust with her father, referring to him as an "old lecher" and an "old liar", says he is "the only son of a needy father" and that he had "nothing" and would "come up empty any friday." All of these descriptions reveal that her father was a poor, perverted, probably lazy man who provided nothing to his family, leaving the speaker with childhood memories she is not fond of and of which haunted her. In order for her to proceed with life she needed to come to terms with her past. Her father's abuse and neglect haunted her but she needed to reflect on it so that she could forgive him. The way her father treated her gave her the misconception that love does not exist between family members. He left her with bitter experiences that lead her to believe she was supposed to be constantly forsaken by her loved ones. Her father lacked not only in providing financial support to their family but was greedy in his treatment of them as well; as the speaker contemplated her past she began to understand how those experiences were holding her back. Her view of love began to change because she realized those misconceptions were false, which in the end freed her from the pain she had been feeling.

In the final lines she asks the question "what am i doing here collecting?" The whole poem is the speaker addressing her father but in these lines she could also be asking herself this question as well. She doesn't want to be burdened by the past anymore; her parents are both dead, not able to do any more damage to her life and she finally accepts and moves past it. She now understands her parents no longer stand between her and happiness but her own refusal to forgive them and move past those difficult times does. Once she finally comes to those realizations, similar to the speaker in Hayden's poem, she is freed of her past.

Clifton, unlike Hayden, was not known to have a strenuous relationship with her parents. Clifton did go through difficult times in her childhood, not because of relationships but more so because of her race and gender. Her father was known to encourage her by telling stories about her ancestors and she started writing as a child due to inspiration from her parents. Clifton is known for writing about families and about other struggles that have to do with faith and equality so she can be tied to the speaker but not necessarily through the resentment of her father. Her mother suffered from epilepsy and her family was extremely poor. These personal facts could be tied into the speaker's anger with her father for not being able to provide the family and her mother with what is needed. The finality of the speaker releasing all of the pent up resentment and anger also reflects what Clifton stood for. She was an activist of both black rights and women's rights and liked to write about hope and overcoming obstacles, the speaker in "forgiving my father" was able to let her resentment go and by that overcame something that had been holding her back. Clifton's indirect personal connection to the speaker reveals the tone and freeing conclusion to "forgiving my father" ("Lucille Clifton.").

Robert Hayden and Lucille Clifton are both tied to the speakers in their poems. Though the writers may not have included exact experiences from their lives, Hayden was able to incorporate the difficulties he faced at home and Clifton was able to illustrate her life obstacles through the speakers strength in "forgiving my father." Despite the fact "Those Winter Sundays" focused on the speaker's gradual awareness of the faults in his and his father's relationship, while the speaker in "forgiving my father" focused on surrendering to the fears of her past, they both shared the topic of bad parenting and the effect it has on children. The two poems work together to reveal how the extent of parental involvement in a child's life shapes the way they view love in both their childhood and their future.

