Poetry Essay

Fathers’ Love through Poetry

Zach A. Thompson

Class 711

March 9, 2015

When you think of a typical “Dad,” you might think about something specific, a certain kind of person.  However, there are many different fathers that exist, that show love for their children in many different ways.  The poems “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke show that this is true by talking about two very different fathers that show love for their children very differently.

In “My Papa’s Waltz,” the father shows his love by waltzing with his son.  In the poem, it says, “We romped until the pans/slid from the kitchen shelf.”   This poem is about a boy and his father who are dancing together one night in their home.  They are waltzing boisterously enough that the shelf is shaking and things are falling from it.  I think that they are having a good time and the father is showing his love that way.  Later on in the poem, it says  “[he] waltzed me off to bed/still clinging to [his] shirt.”  It is later in the night and the father is still dancing and they continue until the boy goes to bed.   The boy still wants to keep waltzing because he is still holding on to his father.  At that moment they are showing their affection for each other and the boy doesn’t want it to end right there.  The father in this poem is waltzing with his son for a long time to show his love, waltzing all night. 

In “Those Winter Sundays,” the father shows his love by doing extra work to help his family.  In the poem, it says, “with cracked hands that ached/from labor in the weekday weather.”   The father is doing physical labor all week in the frigid weather that makes his hands dry and chapped.  He is doing so much for his family that he is hurting himself for them, a clear sign of love.  Furthermore, the poem says, “Sundays too my father got up early/And put on his clothes in the blueblack cold...  made/banked fires blaze.” According to the poem, the father got up early every day, even Sunday, to help fuel the fire in the cold weather.  He is showing his love by making his family feel at home and putting himself out for them. 

Although love has been expressed in both poems, some might argue that the tones are not completely positive.  In “Those Winter Sundays,” it says, “No one ever thanked him.” The father is not getting any appreciation for his hard work.  He is showing love for his family, but they are not returning the favor.  However, I still think the tone is mostly positive, because although he is not getting any gratitude, he still works on and on for them.  This means that he cares even more about them because he doesn’t mind not being thanked.  The tone in “My Papa’s Waltz” is also mixed.  In the poem, it says, “The whiskey on your breath/could make a small boy dizzy.”  The boy is waltzing with his father, who has had too much whiskey and is possibly drunk.  Drunk people can be unpredictable and in the poem, the boy’s ear keeps getting scraped by his father’s belt buckle.   However I believe that the father really cares about his son and the tone of the poem is mostly joyful.

Overall, in both poems, the fathers show clear love for their children, but doing it in very different ways.  From dancing to hard work, all good fathers, like the ones in the two poems, should show love for their children to stay a true and loving family.