My Papas Waltz

My Papas Waltz

Poetry is a short story written in a language that is almost musical. I believe that before a person reads a writer or poets words it is iimportant to know a little history about the author himself in order to obtain a better understanding of his or her work. The poem that I picked was "My Papas Waltz", because in this certain peace I was able to relate to the main characters in theirselves and their life. Clugston notes that because of Raoethke intimate writing , he was part of a group of poets known as a confessional poets. People read a whole lot of poems everyday and their interpretation of poems meaning will vary.and this is also a valid statement concerning My papas waltz. The casual drinking of the father , the mothers playful frown, and the sons description of how he dance and played with his fathrer are very ecplicit interpretations of love and caring in Theidire Roethkeacs poem My fathers waltz( Clugston, 2010).The action of the offspring conveys to the audience his impression of his papa at the start of the poem, for instance , I believe that in his words that he loves spending time with his father eventhough there seems to be a drinking issue involved.In every house hold, lies a relationship that can only be 'seen' through their own words or facial expressions. For example, the poem began with a rough image of a father who drinks, "The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy" ("My papa's waltz" by Theodore Reothke, lines 1 & 2). This tells the reader that the father is stressed, and relieves it by the unfortunate tendency of drinking( Clugston, 2010 ).

As I read into the poem I begin to feel that there seems to be a relationship between the son and father where the father has most of the control, The father seems to have this need for his son to admire him for what he does or how he does it , and in turn tends to fall into manipulation and control."I hung on like death." ( Clugston, 2010 ) To me this seems as though the boy was always walking on eggshells, not knowing what to do that would be right or wrong in his fathers eyes.

There seems to be a presense of symbolism that is existant, but not dominant. With the design of the poem there is a speculation that the symbolism will show up differently from reader to reader. since the poem does include dancing i would correlate the symbolism to a emotion of joy . Although the young man shudders at his fathers drinking he also enjoys the time he gets to spend with him. as a reader we know tht the boy loses interest in his fathers drinking because of the way that he describes his fathers breath , the way that the mother reacted to the situation caused a noticing that although she was in the midst this poem mostly faces the fact that the son enjoys the time in which he is able to share with his father. Perhaps the mother thinks the whiskey is influencing the "romping"