Robert Hayden was born on the fourth of August 1913 as Asa Bundy Sheffey. He grew up in a poor Detroit neighborhood called Paradise Valley and was a child of the foster care system; he had an emotionally rocky childhood. As a child Hayden spent most of his time reading due to his poor vision. He later became a domestically and internationally recognized author. “Those Winter Sundays,” first published in 1962, is one of Hayden’s most popular poems. It describes the unspoken love of a father through a distant memory. In this poem, the author excellently illustrates both the simplicities and complexities of parental love, the limited outlook on life and love in childhood due to a lack of knowledge and the author’s underlying emotions about his father and his childhood through the recollection of a simple memory.
In “Those Winter Sundays,” the speaker, is reflecting on a childhood memory. It is of his father waking before the dawn of day to start fires to warm the family dwelling. The speaker looks back in great regret at this memory. The poem is symbolic of the author’s emotional struggles of his childhood. The author successfully portrays a simple event
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The father probably gets up early to go to work on the other days of the week. “Blueblack cold,” the speaker uses imagery to allow readers to envision not only the father getting up before the dawn of day, but also to identify the season, which is winter. “Then with cracked hands…banked fires blaze. No one thanked him,” the speaker once again uses imagery to depict the extent of the father’s labor during the week. The father labors all week only to come home, where one expects to rest, to continue to labor for his family that is ungrateful for his deeds. This stanza symbolizes a parent’s selflessness; the speaker’s father goes out of his way to take care of his