Glossary

Hayden uses a technique call synesthesia when he writes "blueblack cold."  In poetry, synesthesia is when you use one sense (like sight) to describe another (like touch).  For example, "cold" is something that you feel, but Hayden describes it as a color.  Even though "blueblack" isn't something you can feel, it creates an impression of the cold that includes how it looks rather than just how it feels.  The speaker says it is early morning, so "blueblack" might be describing what the sky looks like outside the window or how the room looks in the early light.

Besides being a description of the setting, how does this image help you understand the poem?

What else is might be blueblack?  ice, a bruise,  . . .

Think about how these blueblack images might help you understand the speaker's world. 

If something is chronic, that means it has been happening for a long time and keeps coming back.

Example:  Harold's chronic back pain forced him to stay home from work for the fourth time this year.

What does this image tell you about the father? 

How does this image relate to the last line of the poem, "No one ever thanked him."

Diction is word choice.  When a poet writes a poem, he or she carefully chooses each word to make sure it fits perfectly into the poem.  For example, a poet might choose the word "upset" instead of "angry" or "jubilant" instead of "happy."  A fierce wind is very different from a gentle breeze, so poets make sure they pick the word that creates the picture they want you to see or the sound they want you to hear.  

This line is also both an image and figurative language.

Does the father literally "drive out the cold"? What is he actually doing?

"Drive" can mean to push something along, like a cowboy might drive cattle across the prairie. 

Imagine what "driving out the cold" might look like. It is definitely an action, no just something that happens on its own.

This line is really more of an example of figurative language than imagery, but in a way you can see this angry house.

The diction in this line holds a lot of information.  Think about what each of these words tells you about the relationships in this house:

"fearing"

"chronic angers"

This is an image you can both see and feel.

How does "fires ablaze" contrast with the images of cold?

What do you think the author wants you to notice about this contrast?  What does the fire the father builds do for the family? 

Hayden uses synesthesia again here to describe the cold.  This time, what sense does he use to describe the feeling of cold? (Hint: "hear the cold . . .")

Now you can not only feel and see the cold, but you can hear it.  The author has created a 3-D setting for this poem

What kinds of images do the words "splintering" and "breaking" bring to your mind?  

If you were using these words to describe a relationship, what would that relationship be like? 

Imagery means that an author uses words to help you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch something in a poem.

Examples:

The white ocean waves sounded like a drum as they crashed onto the gritty beach and splattered the cold, salty spray onto my face.

The image in this poem is of a wave crashing onto a beach.  The author doesn't just describe how it looks.  The sound, taste, and feel of the wave crashing are described as well.

If you do something indifferently, it means that you don't care about it very much or put much value in it.

Example: Mark browsed the hats indifferently because he didn't really care which one he bought.

Robert Hayden

As you read about his life, look for details that might be related to the theme of  his poem "Those Winter Sundays." 

Born Asa Bundy Sheffey in 1913, Robert Hayden was raised in a poor neighborhood in Detroit. He had an emotionally tumultuous childhood and was shuttled between the home of his parents and that of a foster family, who lived next door. Because of impaired vision, he was unable to participate in sports, but was able to spend his time reading. In 1932, he graduated from high school and, with the help of a scholarship, attended Detroit City College (later Wayne State University).

Hayden published his first book of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust, in 1940. He enrolled in a graduate English Literature program at the University of Michigan where he studied with W. H. Auden. Auden became an influential critical guide in the development of Hayden's writing. Hayden admired the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elinor Wiley, Carl Sandburg, and Hart Crane, as well as the poets of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Jean Toomer. He had an interest in African-American history and explored his concerns about race in his writing.

Hayden's poetry gained international recognition in the 1960s and he was awarded the grand prize for poetry at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966 for his book Ballad of Remembrance. In 1976, he became the first black American to be appointed as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (later called the Poet Laureate). He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1980.

from http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/196 

Labor means work. 

Examples:  The prisoner was sentenced to five years of hard labor for his crime.  He would be working on the new railroad.

In this poem, office doesn't mean a place where you work.  Here, office means a duty or task that you are either assigned or choose to do.  

Example:  The custodians daily office was to sweep the floor and wash the windows. 

The setting of a poem is when and where it takes place.

Example:  The setting in this poem by Robert Frost is in a forest.

The speaker in a poem is the person who is "talking" or telling what happens--the "I" in the poem."  The speaker and author are not always the same person.  For instance, Shel Silverstein, a middle-age man, can write a poem from the perspective of an 8-year-old girl named Sally.  Shel Silverstein is the author, but Sally is the speaker.

Example:  In this poem, the speaker is telling us about how he is being eaten by a boa constrictor; however, Shel Silverstein, the author, is perfectly safe. 

The theme of a poem is its meaning--the moral or a lesson the author wants us to learn about life. A theme isn't "love" or "peace." A theme would be something like:

If you really love something, you will let it go.

or

Peace is more important than winning.

Also, the theme must be supported by evidence from the poem.  The poem might mean something different to you than someone else, but you need to be able to explain your interpretation using examples from the text.

In the last two lines, the author stops describing the situation and asks a question.

What does this question mean?

How does it help us understand what the speaker is trying to say?