Imagine, Visualize, See

One of the poems I found really interesting was "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden. I became intrigued by the poet's poignancy over his childhood, specifically his relationship with his father. I was enchanted by this novel because of the powerful imagery Hayden creates in each line of his entire poem. At first, the harsh lines lead me to assume Hayden was writing his experiences of abuse using metaphors. Phrases such as "chronic angers" definitely grayed the subject matter for me. Yet, as we talked it over in class and attempted to clear everything up, I decided that the poem was one of a regretful son. Hayden allows his audience to SEE everything his father did by using great control of language. For instance, "blueblack cold" allowed me to imagine a color associated with the extreme cold; "cracked hands that ached" granted me the ability to visualize hands that were chapped and ruined; "banked fires blaze" made me think of fires warming every inch of an individual.  This entire poem actually reminded me of The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In one of her novel titled The Long Winter, there is a scene depicted much as this one was by Hayden, where Wilder describes the extreme chill of her home on winter mornings. Remembering the book's scene definitely lent to my visualization of the poem's scene too. Because of the great attention to detail Hayden uses in lines, I was able to put myself into this scene, just as I had in Wilder's book. I could easily imagine and identify the senses Hayden went through as a boy.