Poem Essay

            Relationships between parents and children can be complex.  The poems “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke are both poems about children and their relationships with their fathers. “My Papa’s Waltz” is about a child and his father’s fun, joyful relationship and “Those Winter Sundays” is about the child and his father’s complicated relationship.

           

            The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is about how the child and his father have a playful, happy relationship. For instance the father comes home from work and plays with his son: “you beat time on my head/ with a palm caked hard by dirt/ then waltzed me off to bed/ still clinging to your shirt.” A “palm caked hard by dirt” implies that the father works really hard. But when he gets home he puts his son first and plays with him before taking care of himself. Another example is “But I hung on like death:/ such waltzing was not easy/ we romped until the pans/ slid from the kitchen shelf.” The boy and his father are knocking things around and messing up the kitchen. They are playing and having a good time together. The father and his son have a good relationship and enjoy each other’s company.

            The poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden is about a child and his father’s complex relationship. For example the line “speaking indifferently to him/ who had driven out the cold/ and polished my good shoes as well.” The child’s father does so much for him but the child acts like it doesn’t matter.  The child speaks “indifferently” to him, which means without interest or concern. The child acts like he doesn’t really care what his father does for him. He has no appreciation for his father. Another example is “Sundays too my father got up early/ and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold/ then with cracked hands that ached/ from labor in the weekday weather made/ banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.” The father does all these things for his child but no one thanks him. The fact that he has “cracked hands that ached” means that the father works hard during the week. And even though the father doesn’t have to, he still goes home and does everything he can for his child. His son takes what his dad does for granted and he doesn’t appreciate what the dad has done. The father does all these things out of love, but the child doesn’t recognize it and he doesn’t thank his father. This indicates a bad relationship because the father does so much but he is not appreciated.  

In conclusion, “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke are both about father-child relationships. In “Those Winter Sundays” the father and the child don’t have a good relationship and the child takes what his father does for granted. In “My Papa’s Waltz” the father and the child play around and goof off with each other so they have a great relationship. Children should appreciate what their parents do for them and not take it for granted.