Question

Read the poem below and then respond to the questions listed:

My Papa's Waltz

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 huckle,
You beat on my head
with a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off the bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Theodore Roethke (1932, p. 45)
Roethke, T. (1932). The collected poems of Theodore Roethke, New York, Doubleday
1. What feelings, thoughts or pictures come to mind as you read the poem?

2. After reading the poem, what stands out most in your mind?

3. Was there anything in the poem that bothered you or surprised you?

4.Does the poem remind you of anything that has ever happened to you or to someone you know or something you read/heard about?

5. Would you call these responses( 1-4 above) ‘aesthetic’ or ‘ efferent’?

Answer 1

1. This poem incites feelings of anxiety, while I see a tattered father dancing with his boy. You can see that the boy is scared of his disheveled dr/nken father. While the dance is more symbolic of their father-son relationship, this poem does not forget to add the imagery of their messy surroundings.
2. The thing that bothered me about this poem was the subtle hint that there may or may not have been ab/se involved.
3. This poem reminds me of a story I once heard as a young child, that of a child who lived in a home where domestic violence was normal. He had walked in on his father hurting his mother, and the father put him back to sleep. It was an every day occurrence in that home, the boy feared his father, yet he held admiration, and respect just as the boy in this poem.
4. I would call these lines aesthetic, however, I think that when Theodore Roethke wrote this piece, it took a lot more than beauty to put down onto paper. I think it was deeper than a bystander point of view. The courage it takes to write something so poetic, yet so angry, and to be able to control the ending, it's magnificent.