Essay on The Poetry of Robert Hayden - 1657 Words

Although the majority of Robert Haydens writings address racial themes and depicts events in African-American history, he also wrote short poems that capture his own personal experiences. Hayden has an enormous amount of great poems and short stories, but as I read through many of them, I was touched by two specific poems that I felt I could personally relate to. I chose these poems because I am able to put myself into the story-line and understand what the writer is talking about. I believe that a good writer is able to reach any reader regardless of race, gender, or age. Hayden possessed an incredible skill with his language and the structures of his poems that could almost pull the reader right out of their chair and place them in the†¦show more content†¦The first thing I had learned about Haydens style before I began reading his actual poems was that he frequently used first-person point of view. Many critics mimic the same thoughts when they discuss how a large majori ty of his poems were based on his personal experience. He uses his recollection of himself in relation to something else: other characters, different experiences, and even through works of art. He tends to reflect back on numerous times of his childhood. They are clearly personal and some almost seem biographical as he remembers his past and his family as he grew older. These writing are not usually happy for him or easy to put on paper for everyone to see. They seem to bring up pain, guilt, sorrow and a sense of suffering. His writings reflect what he feels on the inside: lost identity, loneliness, and his longing need for attention. In Those Winter Sundays Hayden tells a story about a son looking back at his father during his childhood. The poem describes a father that through words doesnt necessarily show love or affection towards his family. It captures the need of love from a distant father to his child. Through reading this poem, it is discovered that the love the son was looking for was always present it was just communicated more through the fathers efforts and less through the type of tenderness that is expected from a child. He explains in small details his fathers suffering. The manShow MoreRelatedCommentary on Robert Hayden Poetry Essay957 Words   |  4 Pagespoint compares that of a boy and the perspective of him as an adult. According to the first line, there is an action that precedes the anecdote. As the poem suggests, the father wakes up early every day of the week to do work, including Sundays. Robert Hayden, the author, uses imagery and diction to help describe the scene. The diction helps exemplify the imagery even better, the reader can sense how the speaker’s home felt like as well as the father’s hard work. The speaker awakens to the splinteringRead MoreAnalysis Of Gwendolyn Brooks And Robert Hayden s Poetry1255 Words   |  6 Pages Reflective Writing An Analysis of Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Hayden’s Poetry Many artists are also historians, people who record first-hand experience of history, making note of important events to which many will make reference. Artist do this through music, writing, and orally through passed-down stories and legends. In the area of writing, there are many different types which display historical understanding. These categories divide into poems, prose, short stories, and long stories. The categoryRead MoreHayden’s Way Essay1033 Words   |  5 PagesHayden’s Way Robert Hayden was a man who worked with what he had instead of dreaming of what he does not have. Pursuing what he loves to do even when people would put him down or not acknowledge him. 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Hayden did not discover the storyRead MoreForgiving My Father And Those Winter Sundays Analysis1022 Words   |  5 Pagesor not, he still exists and takes that role. A father has a major impact on his child whether he knows it or not, and that impact and example shapes the child’s perspective on life, and on love. The authors, Robert Hayden and Lucille Clifton, share the impact of their fathers through poetry, each with their own take on how their fathers treated them. The poems â€Å"Forgiving My Father† and â€Å"Those Winter Sundays† have significant differences in the speaker’s childhood experiences, the tone of the worksRead MoreRobert Hayden And I, Too, Sing Americ a By Langston Hughes1706 Words   |  7 PagesIn the poems â€Å"Frederick Douglass† by Robert Hayden and â€Å"I, Too, Sing America† by Langston Hughes, both authors engage in the common themes of race, oppression, and freedom, but Hayden contextualizes the theme in a wider mindset instead of narrowing it down to just black oppression, while Langston contextualizes the theme with a direct approach to black oppression and freedom. Not only are the approaches to the topic different, but they also relate through the messages that they are conveying aboutRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of Frederick Douglass By Robert Hayden868 Words   |  4 Pagesours this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful† (Line 1) is one of the many lines in Robert Haydens poem â€Å"Frederick Douglass†. One of many poems in which Hayden takes events or figures from African American history as his subject. This poem was written as a tribute to Frederick Douglas himself. One of the very we ll-known and praised African Americans in the nineteenth century. This is no ordinary poem for Hayden. It is written in an improper sonnet. By improper I mean, sonnets are usually fourteenRead MoreEssay about The Harlem Renaissance1515 Words   |  7 Pages   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Harlem Renaissance Poets consist of: James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean (Eugene) Toomer, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, and Gwendolyn Brooks. These eight poets contributed to modern day poetry in three ways. One: they all wrote marvelous poems that inspired our poets of modern times. Two: they contributed to literature to let us know what went on in there times, and how much we now have changed. And last but not least they all have written poems thatRead MoreSocial Criticism in Blakes Chimney Sweeper and Haydens Monets Waterlilies1274 Words   |  6 Pagescorruption of these contrasting societies is vividly depicted in William Blakes The Chimney Sweeper and Robert Haydens Monets Waterlilies, respectively. Both poems offer a clear understanding of how society can negatively shape a being with false stereotypes. Both poets observed how humans were stripped of their civil, social, and personal rights in societies that were flourishing with life. Hayden and Blake were not only poets, but they were also activists. Each wrote about societies that were plaguedRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem My Papa s Waltz By Theodore Roethke1020 Words   |  5 Pages My Papa s Waltz, by Theodore Roethke, and Those Winter Sundays, by Robert Hayden, are two of the most famous American poems dealing with the theme of fatherhood. Each of them detail the narrator’s own experience with their fathers and some things are the same about them and some are different. That is what makes poetry unique. There are millions of poems out there so some may appear to be the same upfront, but they always have a factor that separates them from the rest. Both of these poems