Comments for For the Fathers Work that We Forget

For the Fathers Work that We Forget

2009-07-02T15:00:31Z

{Dwayne Betts}

There are poems that last because they sound good, and then there are poems that last because they say something that we need to hear. I've always been a fan of Robert Hayden - but this poem in particular reminds me of the importance of fatherhood. Just say the last two lines to yourself again and again, and though it's about fathers - the lines apply fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, lovers. Read it. Then read it again.

Those Winter Sundays

BY ROBERT E. HAYDEN

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.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?

Comment from dragonflyingash on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T15:22:20Z

I've always loved this poem since I first read it in high school years ago. It all always reminded me of all the little things that my dad did for us growing up that we appreciated at the time. One of my favorites by Hayden.

Comment from Upsidedownpoint on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T15:22:34Z

One of my favorites.

Comment from dragonflyingash on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T15:23:00Z

I meant we "NEVER" appreciated at the time.

Comment from dedc79 on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T15:28:41Z

I love the way Hayden uses color to describe the cold, temperature to describe sound, and emotions to describe the home.

Comment from CitizenE on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T15:31:16Z

Also the poem is about being a man; what it is, the kind of love we deliver, stacking up a blaze against emptiness, our delight, not in the thanks, but in the warming of whom and what we love.

Comment from Anna S. on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T15:33:13Z

Just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed your posts on poetry (I'm a fan of when TNC does it too), and since I know that you can talk about forms and parsing meaning out of structure as well as words, I would love to see you post on that sort of thing or other aspects of how being a poet influences the way you read other people's poetry if you want.

As for something substantive about the poem: I came to Hayden via Auden, who is one of my favorite modern poets. The Auden link means that I ran into Hayden's most socially conscious work first ('Middle Passage'; 'Night, Death, Mississippi') and only later found quieter work like this, which I find I prefer. I do like Hayden's tendency to make conjunctions of words meant to evoke mood (here 'blueblack', in 'Night, Death, Mississippi' he uses 'bloodybones').

Comment from bashe on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T15:40:34Z

Y’know what? I love this poem, too. But as a 50-year old black college professor, who lives in the suburbs, and grew up in the suburbs (as the son of a Ph.D. public school administrator), and who writes this just before going to the gym to hit the treadmill, and whose 14 year-old son is playing a video game right now…. Isn’t it curious and interesting how these archetypal Tough Black Fathers seem to be all we—meaning me and my son and my off-to-college-in-the-fall daughter—have to hold on to as primary black cultural narratives of Heroic Black Fatherhood? I can’t help thinking about Colson Whitehead’s superb novel John Henry Days, which raises similar questions about how those raised black middle class in the post-civil rights movement era can possibly match the heroism of John Henry’s legend (another vital black cultural narrative). I admire the poem, and I admire the father described in the poem. But their realty is so far from my own reality that the father and son Hayden describes might as well live on Pluto.

Comment from Dwayne Betts on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T16:07:33Z

Bashe,

Your comment is interesting, although I disagree with you. A friend of mine had a different take on the John Henry myth - he said it was a cautionary tale about how not to survive in America. From his line of thinking you see John Henry could work, but his problem was believing that to work was enough. And it's that belief that destroyed him.

Now, as far as the poem goes - I think you're missing part of the point. Hayden was writing about a father that he knew, that he could recognize. We could say that the poem is framed to fit the Tough Black Fathers archetype by the details of the fathers life he chooses to highlight - but we could also say that those are the details that led him to the beautiful moment at the end, What did I know? What did I know/ of love's lonely and austere offices.

My point is that I'm sure there are a hundred things that you do every day that fit into the type of firing up the coals, and cleaning the good shoes. I was raised by a single mom, but I know I could write a similar poem about frying the chicken and getting up early in the morning to work, and washing my clothes. And your father, as an administrator - I'm sure you could talk about the thousands of kids he fathered through his work that never called him daddy.

Now, if your point is why doesn't this poem show the less heroic side - I'd argue that this is only one poem, and I can give you another poem that shows the less heroic father - just so we can have both images in our heads for the day. Whatever the case - we love heroes. And I'm pretty sure your off-to-college-in-the-fall daughter and video game playing son sees you as a hero.

Comment from Hosono on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T16:11:51Z

I love Hayden so much. Witch Doctor is one of my all time favorites...

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171824

Comment from Incertus(Brian) on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T16:36:13Z

It's the "and polished my good shoes as well" line that always gets me, because I read it as one of the few ways that a father could express the care he felt for his son, given that men were supposed to be the cold, unfeeling providers and that being tough was the way to prepare a child to be an adult. It's a small thing, and at first glance could be mistaken for a throwaway line, but it really resonates with me for that reason.

Comment from elbow on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T16:46:27Z

I had to memorize this poem in elementary school and I hated it. It took me years to figure out that the poem itself is not problematic so much as being forced to memorize it and recite it in front of my classmates when my own father had died a few years before, and I was 12. As an adult, I can fully appreciate its richness, but as a kid, it felt like being scolded for being spoiled.

An aside: I grew up going to public schools in Philly, and it wasn't until most of the way through high school that I found out that not all poets are black men. Every poem we were ever introduced to was by a black man, and my mom cracked up when I said something about Robert Frost being a black poet. I was quite disappointed. Reading Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening was better for me when I thought the author was a harlem renaissance poet.

Comment from DN on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T17:14:54Z

It is interesting to me that Bashe saw this as a poem about a black father. I am as white bread as one can be, but this was so my dad. My house was angry, scolding, and as well loving and full of joy. Every morning was hard since we didn't know what to expect. Still, my dad was always up by 5 and getting things ready in ways that I only appreciate from a distance. By the time I was a teenager I was dismissive and distant from anything he said. When I first read this poem it felt like it had been written for me. Now, some years after my father has died, it is even more poignant.

Comment from Storm on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T17:45:26Z

This being my first readiong of this (lovely) poem (and not knowing Hayden's race), I did not assume any race for the father. The race of the father is unimportant; it is the loving acts done by the father that is most endearing -- loving acts that can be done by all fathers, nothwithstanding race.

Comment from Juba on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T17:45:37Z

First saw this on the train in New York City.

God bless Poetry in Motion.

Comment from lebecka on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T18:12:12Z

Lovely poem.

Quick story: My younger, very hipster brother (think Vince Vaughn in "Swingers") was expecting his first child, and after a day of assembling IKEA furniture mumbled something about fatherhood. I said "Kind of makes you appreciate Dad, huh." And he said, "No. It makes me want to crawl on my hands and knees to his house so that I can beg forgiveness for being such a dick my whole life."

Comment from nolo on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T18:51:06Z

All I know is it made me cry.

Comment from CitizenE on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T19:35:52Z

And here is the craft of poetry: lazy writers in English throw around meaningless adjectives for ornamentation, which are rare in frequency in actual speech. When Hayden says "good" here, it's not a vaguely ornamental, throwaway word, but one with a precise and homely meaning.

Comment from Liza on 2009-07-02

2009-07-02T20:29:59Z

I hope that your younger brother did get around to telling your dad how much he appreciates him, after the fact.

Comment from lebecka on 2009-07-02

2009-07-03T01:50:31Z

Who knows how men communicate with each other? My brother and dad have a really good relationship, so I imagine he did. My brother has a son now, and he's a really good dad, just like our dad is--I think that's the real reward my dad is looking for. ( A really nice Father's Day card doesn't come amiss, either).