Poetry Literary Essay

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke are poems about a hard working father’s relationship between him and his child. In “Those Winter Sundays,” the speaker talks about how the love of a father is unappreciated. In “My Papa’s Waltz” the speaker takes it back to a childhood memory with an evening dance with a working father and his son. 

In Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” the speaker remembers his father “got up early/put his clothes on in the blue black cold/with cracked hands that ached from weekday weather.” this description makes the reader think of a father that wakes up early in the morning even on his days of rest. “Made banked fires blaze/” early in the morning, but, “no one ever thanked him.” The reader of the poem sees the father doing so much work for his family, but is never appreciated for what he does. The speaker also says the father “had driven out the cold/and polished my good shoes as well.” Not only was the father not appreciated, but the speaker never realized what the father did for them. In the end the speaker says, “what did I know, what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?”  Looking back the speaker finally realizes that the little acts of kindness, such as polishing his shoes and making the fires, was to show that the father loves his child. The speaker wishes that he could’ve realized it sooner. In Hayden’s poem we see a son that is not very close to his father even though the speaker doesn’t show that they love their father, the father still provides for him and loves him in the way he knows how. 

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is about the speaker describing a typical evening at home. The speaker talks about his father who’s “palm(s) (are) caked hard by dirt,” “waltzing with his son in the kitchen.” The father had “whiskey on (his) breath/(that) could make a small boy dizzy.” This tells me that father had a hard day of work and relaxed with a whiskey. The speaker shows the relationship between the father and son by saying they,”romped until the pans/slid from the kitchen shelf,” they “waltzed off to bed/still clinging to (his) shirt.”

“Those Winter Sundays” and “My Papa’s Waltz” are both poems about a father and son relationship. “Those Winter Sundays” is about how the speaker later on in life realizes that his father loves him/her. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, the speaker shows the bond between the father and son. These poems teach us not to take anything for granted and be thankful for what you have.