Robert Hayden is an American novelist, poet, and educationalist. He has written several novels and poems, which more similar to his life and mostly expressed the feelings of love and care in a family.
Being bought up by foster parents, he did not have a happy childhood and this lead him to express his lost feeling through poetry.
Hayden published his first book in 1940, at the age of 27. By the 1960`s Hayden’s poem had earned international recognition. By the year 1966, he was awarded the Grand prize for poetry at the First World festival of Negro Arts. In 1975, he also received the Academy of American Poets fellowship.
Since he was nearsighted and slight of stature, he was often kept apart both in his family and among his peers. This lead Hayden read immensely and develops an eye and ear for transformative qualities in literature.
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“Those Winter Sundays” is a poem that explains the love a father has for his child. Even during the toughest time of the season, the father makes an effort to do his chores for his son. Because of the extreme cold, he makes sure that he wakes up his son only after the room is being warmed up; in spite he has all his hands in bad shape due to his work.
In the poem, the poet says that his father also polished his shoes, which depicts that on a Sunday, the father was also focused on bringing up the moral manners in his son and teaching him moral values.
In the poem, the poet also states that though there was anger in the house, which may be depicted as difference of opinion or arguments for any reason, the father made it a point to see to it that, all those never affected the love he had for his son and did all that he could.
In spite of taking care and doing all the small things for his family, the poet says in the poem, that no body thanked his father. Through his poem, Hayden has tried to explain the tough times his father had in the house and how no one ever acknowledged his efforts. The love that he had was never given back, and later on life, when Hayden grew, he regrets for all those happenings in life.
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Hayden explains towards the last of the poem, the regret that he holds today after many years for speaking indifferently to his father, who loved and sacrificed so much for him, and says being a child, little did he know about love and offenses and today as a grown up, deeply regrets for what he has done to his father.
Since the poet had a dark and lonely childhood, his poems also reflect the pain he had undergone of being lonely and ignored and not being loved and cared. Every person should be able to understand the love they receive and try returning it in the same depth, as we never know what lies ahead for tomorrow, is what truly the poet explains.