One of the themes in Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes is the importance of community, especially the community unit of family. The relationship between Mr. Holloway and Will matures throughout the novel, Jim begins to understand his single-parent situation more clearly, and even Miss Foley demonstrates (in a sadly negative way) a need for family connections.

Robert Hayden wrote a poem about his family situation (particularly his father) that illustrates the complexity of familial relationships. For November, please memorize “Those Winter Sundays.” You will need to know the word order, line breaks, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation for the written test on November 22.

                                                 Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden