QUAILEX KWIA BALLAIS SE11 TFRI 1:00 – 2:30 PM MARCH 26, 2019

My Papa’s Waltz
BY THEODORE ROETHKE
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

My Papa’s Waltz: A Poem Analysis

Theodore Roethke was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan. He went to Harvard
and taught poetry in Washington. His poems reflects his interest in the greenhouse his
father worked on. At the age of fourteen, his father died. Roethke suffered from issues
such as loss, abandonment, depression and mental instability in the 1930’s but eventually
overcame it. Towards the end of his life, he became one of the most famous poets of his
generation.
 One of his famous works is “My Papa’s Waltz” that was published in 1942. The
poem gives an impression about a scene in a family life, the relationship of a father and
son, authority, and perhaps violence and fear as they waltz. The poem itself is full of
ambiguity. The title of the poem, which instills the word waltz refers to a rhythmic and
free-flowing dance which could indicate the poem is like that. The poem consists of four
(4) stanzas and each stanza with four (4) lines. The lines in each stanza are short, like
the ones in children’s poetry. Most number of words in each lines of each stanza is either
5 or 6. The number of words of the lines in the first stanza 5, 6, 5, 5; second stanza are
5, 5, 3, 4; third stanza are 6, 5, 5, 6 and; fourth stanza 6, 7, 6, ,5. However, the writer
makes use complex words to clarify of the speaker of the poem. It follows an ABAB rhyme
scheme. There is a repeated use of vowel sounds, an assonance found in the second to
the last lines of the fourth stanza:

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

There is also a use of consonance with words like breath/death, knuckle/buckle,

shirt/dirt, and shelf/itself, showing a tone of seriousness, relativity, and meaning to the
waltz, like how breath could indicate life’s beginning and the end; knuckle and buckle
shows aggresiveness and; shirt and dirt could imply manliness. There are also internal
and slant (half) rhymes. In the first stanza, the words dizzy and easy are half rhymes that
shows how the waltz is somewhat shaky or there is imbalance and there are internal
rhymes in the second stanza with the words romped and from. The mother’s expression
is denoted with the long and rounded vowel sounds using the words countenance and
unfrown. The writer implicates how there is tension in the family between the father and
mother. The poem made use of one figurative speech, a simile which is found on the first
stanza: But I hung on like death – the line means of holding tightly and has a dark tone it
by using the word death. The poem is written in iambic trimeter, indicating how a waltz is
also in that form of beat. It has a light, pleasant and easy-flowing sound when you recite
the poem, just like children’s poems, which distracts the readers from noticing the dark
contents of the poem.
 The poem is written in the first person point of view with the use of pronouns I and
we. The protagonist in the poem is recollecting moments from his childhood. About his
drunk father that would always dance the waltz with him before going off to bed. However,
there is a sense of ambiguity in the poem. It sounds very light and a happy tone of a son
liking and loving the father spending time with him despite everything but it could also be
about a father who endangers his wife and son’s life by being a violent drunkard. A
number of negative words are found in the poem such as whiskey, dizzy, death,
romped, unfrown, battered, scraped, and dirt. Positive words in the poem are
waltzing, held, and clinging. As can be noticed, the words found in positives are verbs,
a showcasing of an action, whereas, the negative words are mostly adjectives or nouns.
Polysemic word like beat could either mean the sound or music of the waltz or the violent
act of hurting someone physically. It could mean the latter since there is a mention of the
belt or buckle that may or may not be the one used by the father to beat his child. These
shows how ambiguous the poem is in terms of interpretation – in shades of white or black.
The lines in the first stanza: But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy, could
infer the child’s strong adoration for his father. The lines in the second stanza: we romped
until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf, might signify about the clumsiness and off-beat
steps of his father as he dances with him and how every night he hurt him and his mother.
The fourth stanza lines: then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt, is about after
the dance is time for rest and despite the end of it, the child still asks for time to spend
with his father or the child would carry the pain of abuse until he falls asleep.

Theodore Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz is a poem that can be interpreted two ways.
In the positive theme, about a son and father relationship full of love and adoration. The
negative theme, about a drunkard father who is violent and abuses his family that scars
them for life. The poem is a waltz itself that takes you about the smooth beat and perfect
steps, until it reaches the clumsiness and falling over of the steps, being off-beat, and the
end of the waltz.

Sources:
Oxford University Press (1967). My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke from The
Second Century Anthologies of Verse Book 2.
Theodore Roethke retrieved from
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/theodore-roethke