Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden
This is a poem I cannot personally relate to but still spoke to me. That is the beauty of poetry. You do no have to share the same experiences. You just have to empathize.
The first thing that stuck out to me was the alliteration. There are many examples in this: "blueback cold", "weekday weather", "banked fires blazed", "were warm", etc. This really gives the poem a great flow making it more accessible to the reader.
No one ever really appreciates what their parents do for them until later in life. It's hard to truly grasp the sacrifices parents make for the children. It seems as if the speaker was talking about the age in which he was unaware of these sacrifices. In the end though, these appeared to him.
In the last stanza, a not to so pretty picture of their relationship is painted clearly. "Speaking indifferently to him". It's almost as if his father was just a provider and not a role model. Was he a bad father or was his son just not receptive of his guidance and love?
The one part that confuses me is "fearing the chronic angers of the house". It seems he could be speaking of two different things: his relationship with his father or the personification of the house. I'm inclined to believe the former as their relationship is defined in the next stanza. Still, it could be either one. That's what I love about poetry. It's up to the reader to interpret the meaning.
Out of all of the poems we have read so far, this one paints the most clear picture. It's almost as if you can see the poem unfold in real time right in front of your eyes. It's a thing of beauty.
The first thing that stuck out to me was the alliteration. There are many examples in this: "blueback cold", "weekday weather", "banked fires blazed", "were warm", etc. This really gives the poem a great flow making it more accessible to the reader.
No one ever really appreciates what their parents do for them until later in life. It's hard to truly grasp the sacrifices parents make for the children. It seems as if the speaker was talking about the age in which he was unaware of these sacrifices. In the end though, these appeared to him.
In the last stanza, a not to so pretty picture of their relationship is painted clearly. "Speaking indifferently to him". It's almost as if his father was just a provider and not a role model. Was he a bad father or was his son just not receptive of his guidance and love?
The one part that confuses me is "fearing the chronic angers of the house". It seems he could be speaking of two different things: his relationship with his father or the personification of the house. I'm inclined to believe the former as their relationship is defined in the next stanza. Still, it could be either one. That's what I love about poetry. It's up to the reader to interpret the meaning.
Out of all of the poems we have read so far, this one paints the most clear picture. It's almost as if you can see the poem unfold in real time right in front of your eyes. It's a thing of beauty.
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