Those Winter Sundays

When I first read this poem, I knew the author was a guy but for some reason I visualized the narrator as a young girl.  But as I read it again I realized it was a boy talking about his father and the day to day schedule his father has to deal with even though he is doing it achingly. I find it sad that when the boy says “fearing the chronic angers of that house” I think how on Sundays, the house seems empty without his father and it seems especially cold since it’s in the middle of winter. The descriptions in the poem describing his father are so vivid such as: “My father got up early and put his clothes in the blue black cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze” (1450).  It makes me wonder if this is about Robert Hayden recalling memories of his father and what he did to put food on the table, and how he feels a lot of respect towards the man even though “No one ever thanked him.” The descriptions also are the reason why I implied the narrator as a woman.

But I also feel like the boy is angry towards his father because this is all he has done with his life and sort of wishes he had done something more: “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” The descriptions almost imply to be that the father is young and had children at a young age and didn’t leave much for himself, and what he really wanted to do in life.

We Real Cool

I had read this poem previously in my poetry class and thought this was one of the best poems I had ever read. The first thing I notice about it is how it’s formatted into four stanzas with eight lines, and has the repetition of the word “We”. “We” begins the poem and ends at every line except the last one, indicating the person speaking had died. But it also leaves me curious as to who “We” is. Are they the narrator’s friends, complete strangers, or a gang the narrator is sort of following in line with, or maybe the narrator is the leader of the gang?

Also it says near the title:

The pools players.

Seven at the Golden Shovel.

I think with the pools players go with the eight lines and how you never want to knock the number eight ball in. Also I think the lines:

“We

Strike straight.” Are talking about playing pool.

Then with the seven at Golden Shovel, I think the number in there is significant as well and how at casinos the lucky number is seven. So I’m assuming the Golden Shovel is a casino and a sort of night club where the narrator spends his/her time throughout the poem or perhaps I'm overlooking this:

“We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin.” (1463)

But overall, I think the main message of this poem is about breaking rules, living fast and dying young or just being an outcast when everyone else is in school, making curfews and living longer:  

“We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.”