Modern poets often reflect on their childhood relationships with their fathers. Some poets view their fathers with a newfound appreciation, some may look at them with acceptance, and still others are trying to overcome the emotional hold a father may have had on them. Some poets view their father with a newfound appreciation. For example, in Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays," the narrator expresses his appreciation for his father when he asks the question, "What did I know, what did I know / Of love's austere and solitary offices?" (Hayden 13-14). As a child, it is difficult to gain appreciation for your father because you don't think about how much a father does for his child. As the speaker grows older, he reflects on his childhood and realizes how much his father did for him. Everything the father did for his son and his family was done out of love and did not get any recognition. An example of how the father helps his family is when he lights the fires to keep the house warm: Even on Sundays my father got up early / and dressed in the blue-black cold / then with chapped hands that hurt / from the labor on weekdays the weather caused / fires lit. Nobody ever thanked him. (Hayden 1-6) The first line explains how his father got up early on Sundays. Sunday was known as a day of rest, but the father still got up and continued to work hard even if it wasn't necessary. The second line simply indicates how cold it was outside, the word blunero means that it was still dark outside. Lines three to five explain how the father had pain in his hands from working in extremely cold weather lighting fires and how no one ever thanked him for doing so. Another example of... middle of paper... the death of her husband and father, she eventually decides to move on and forget about her husband and father completely. She succeeds for a while, but five months after writing the poem, the speaker commits suicide, leading the reader to believe that she had some sort of mental problem and was never able to fully, as she thought she would be able to do it. . It's sad that the narrator had such a hard time moving on and was very depressed, but sometimes it's better to move on and not dwell on the past. As a result, some poets may view their fathers with a newfound appreciation, others may view them with acceptance, and still others are trying to overcome the emotional hold a father may have had on them. Although each poet had a different childhood relationship and different point of view towards his father, they all loved their fathers deeply.