Those Winter Sundays

    The poem "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden was a very interesting poem to read and analyze. I assume the poem was describing how a job is never fully done, and therefore this boy and his dad continued their work even on Sundays. A very important aspect however is the imagery that deals with winter. These descriptions are put there to try and allow us to better understand that the work they were doing in the dead of winter was not easy by any means. Hayden writes, "in the blueblack cold" (Hayden, Line 2) and "I'd wake and hear rrhe cold splintering, breaking." (Hayden, Line 6). The father and son do not just work on Sundays, but they work practically regardless of the weather. The imagery allows us to feel sympathy for them for having to work in the cold on Sundays.
   Also, I noticed the mentioning that his dad never received any thanks for the work that he did. This may serve as the main purpose to the poem. He wanted to give some credit to his father for all the hard work he put into his job and family. This seems to make sense because even while the author does not use positive imagery, it does paint the readers a picture of what the father had to endure working to support his family.