Poetry is a collection of words that tell stories, paint pictures and stir up emotions. Poems can be interpreted differently by each reader. Some find a particular poem to have a specific meaning, while another could find a completely opposite meaning. Poems often use imagery and simile or metaphors to illustrate an idea, thought or emotion. In this paper we will look at three poems that have a similar topic: fathers. The first poem is titled “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden.
This poem is about a father who is a working man. The poem starts off illustrating the father’s dedication to the family by waking up early to make a fire to warm the home. He dresses in the cold dark of morning and the line ends with the statement “No one ever thanked him” (Hayden, n. d. ). The mood starts off somber. The father’s pain is felt through the powerful imagery of the line “cracked hands that ached” (Hayden, n. d. ).
Hayden uses a metaphor when he calls the early winter morning, “blueblack cold” (Hayden, n. . ). He again uses metaphor as he describes hearing “the cold splintering, breaking” (Hayden, n. d. ). Nearing the end of the poem Hayden illustrates the regretful mood of the speaker who was unappreciative of his father’s actions. This idea is expressed in the line “Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well” (Hayden, n. d. ). The often thankless job of a parent was realized much later in life for the speaker.
The second poem is titled “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke. The mood of this poem is fun and jubilant, a snapshot of a child’s memory. The father in this poem dances with his son swinging him around to his mother’s disdain as is illustrated in the line ‘We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother’s countenance Could not unfrown itself” (Roethke, n. d. ). The waltz is a metaphor for not only the dance but the relationship between a father and son.
The imagery of a small boy who is perhaps up too late and his father perhaps has had too much to drink is illustrated by the line “The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke, n. d. ). But the father waltzes the small boy to bed while he clings to his shirt. The boy is scraped by buckles and notes his father’s rough knuckles but enjoys the attention. The buckle is perhaps a metaphor for the rougher parts of the relationship. This small snapshot is one which illustrates that it is often the small moments that are remembered later in life.
The third and final poem is titled “My Father’s Hats” by Mark Irwin. This poem has a decidedly more somber mood as it illustrates a child’s memory of perhaps a deceased father. The child explores his father’s hats on a Sunday morning when perhaps his father was likely to wear them as is expressed in the line “I was in a forest, wind hymning through pines, where the musky scent of rain clinging to damp earth was his scent I loved” (Irwin, n. d. ). Of course the speaker is not in an actual forest, the forest is a simile for being surrounded by hats and also smells.
The use of smell in this poem as a catalyst for the memories of the speaker’s father plays a large part in this poem using imagery as is illustrated in the line “and on the inner silk crowns where I would smell his hair and almost think I was being held, or climbing a tree” (Irwin, n. d. ). This poem strikes a chord with readers who may have lost a father or a close relative and how they too wish to remember the small things of life like a hat or a particular smell. All three poems have the subject of fathers but each has a different mood.
These poems use different phrases and words to explain the complex relationship between a father and child. These poems appeal to me due to the imagery they use to describe the different moments a child remembers. A waltz, or hat, or a provider who cares for you even when no thanks are given each represents a different type of father or relationship. Poetry has the ability to make us think about a subject on a deeper level, it is easier to emotionally connect to a poem than an article or essay. The ideas presented in these poems will speak to anyone who has had a father figure in their lives whether good or bad.
