Those Winter
Sundays
Analysed by:
Moira, AJ and Sarah
Written by:
Robert Hayden
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blue-black cold
Then with cracked hands that ached
From labour in the weekday weather made
Banked firs blaze. No one ever thanked him
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,
Who had driven out the cold
And polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
Of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Theme and about the poem
Theme: parental sacrifice
“Those Winter Sundays” is about love. The deep and serious familial love
between a parent and a child. The type of love that gets you up at the crack of
dawn, even when you’re exhausted from a long week of hard work. This love is
quiet and brave; it’s not showy, there are no hugs and kisses and snuggles. That
means, unfortunately, that it can easily slip by unnoticed.
Those Winter Sundays is a poem about a memory. The speaker recalls the
actions of a father who each Sunday rises early to dutifully make a fire and
polish the good shoes for his son. It's only later on in life that the child becomes
aware of the sacrifice his father, a hard working parent, made.
And, in each stanza, there are hints of a cold, distant relationship between
father and son which is never really reconciled. The speaker is quite helpless in
this questioning present, conditioned by the fears from past household
experiences.
The poem is short, only 14 lines, and is split into three stanzas, each with a
sadness that builds up to the final two lines.
Robert Hayden
Who was he?
Robert Hayden (August 4, 1913 – February 25, 1980) was an American poet,
essayist, and educator. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of
Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. He was
the first African-American writer to hold the office.
