My Papa's Waltz-Theodore Roethke

 The contents of this poem were not what I predicted from the title; I had an inkling that the term “waltz” might signify a life story of some sort, perhaps in the form of a child’s perspective towards their father’s early death. I was wrong; the poem is written in past tense, indicating that the speaker is describing childhood memories rather than contemporary experiences, and the memories are not at all fond. The “waltz” in this poem is not an elegant dance through life; it is a violent, back and forth sequence of drunken abuse from the author’s father. It has an atmosphere of fear and desperation, at least to me; it’s like the narrator valued (or maybe respected?) his father, on some level (despite the abuse), and that the memories are convoluted because of that vague confusion and negative association. I like how abuse is painted as a dance; it conveys the poem as haunting and makes it feel like there’s some kind of terrible rapport between the narrator, his memories, and his father.

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