Those Winter Sundays Summary

Those Winter Sundays Overview

"Those Winter Sundays" is a modern sonnet by American poet and professor Robert Hayden. Originally published in his 1962 collection A Ballad of Remembrance, "Those Winter Sundays" portrays a grown speaker reflecting on past family dynamics, particularly a father's quiet love and sacrifice. Every Sunday morning, the speaker's father woke early to make a fire. The melancholic tone in the poem stems from the speaker's regret at not having thanked the father or expressed love in return. "Those Winter Sundays" centers on themes of love, duty, and memory, with the stark winter imagery evoking the speaker's pain at having missed an opportunity for connection.