Poems About Fathers: Does this Poem Appeal to you? Why or Why Not?

Poems about Fathers
Name
Institution
Poems about Fathers
Introduction
Poems carry a deeper meaning than the simple language used by their authors. The legendary works My Fathers Hat, My Papa’s Waltz and Those Winter Sundays all carry the theme of children’s relationship with their fathers. All these poems are narrated by adults who are trying to remember a part of their childhood, as well as the bond that they had with their fathers. Although the themes of these three poems are obvious, the authors use stylistic devices such as metaphors, imagery and tone to present the mood and theme of the poems.
One of the poems that heavily rely on similes is My Papa’s Walt by Theodore Roethke. In this poem, the narrator uses different connotations of similes to present his theme. In the opening line, the author states that the whiskey on his father’s breath “could make a small boy dizzy” (Theodore, 2015, Line 2). While this statement can indicate that the small boy was still willing to waltz with his father despite the foul breath, the simile that he uses in the next sentence changes the entire mood of the poem. The narrator claims that “But I hung on like death” (Theodore, 2015, Line 3). This simile indicates that death is something that hangs on and the narrator describes himself in this sense. The author of this poem uses death purposely in order to present the danger that the whole process entailed. By stating that he hang on like “death” the narrator might also be indicating the power that he wielded over his father in the sense that he could not shake the little boy off. This might be an indication that the boy was afraid of letting go for fear of what would happen if he did so.
In Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden employs the use of mood in a way that affects the entire understanding of the poem. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator states that his father woke up early on Sundays “And put his clothes on in blue black cold” (Hayden, 2011, Line 2). The use of ‘blue black cold’ at the beginning of the poem creates a dark mood for the entire poem something that makes the entire setting to appear gloomy. The narrator also uses phrases such as “chronic angers of that house” (Hayden, 2011, Line 9) to pain an even gloomier mood of the environment. Even though the poem talks of the day-to-day experiences, the author creates the picture of Friday’s being extremely cold and lonely especially in the middle of winter. This same case applies to My Papa's Waltz where Roethke uses the simile of death to provide a sad mood for the entire poem. In My Father's Hat, Mark Irwin, used images that m...