Comparing Theodore Roethke's Li-Young Lee And Rita Dove

As we get older we tend to reflect more on our life and get our priorities together. We tend to realize who and what is important, the people who mean the most to us and the ones we can’t live without. Who would those significant individuals be for us? For most people it would be their parents. In the poems “My Father’s Song” by Simon J. Ortiz, and “My Mother” by Ellen Bryant Voigt, both writers express their emotion towards a parent. The poems are similar in many ways simply because they share a parent child relationship, they are also vastly different. “My Fathers Song” is a poem about a son who lost his father and is grieving and referring back to old memories, reflecting on their past and the wonderful time he had with his father. “My Mother” on the other hand is a poem about a daughter who lost her mother and is having a difficult time coping as she reflects on the decisions she made as a child and how that affected her relationship with her mother. Despite their differences, the two poems share a true connection of love towards their parent. Most notably “My Fathers Song” and “My Mother” differ in the relationship with their parent, the settings in which the memories they hold of their parents take place, and who they are mourning over, yet the two have a strong emphasis on love.

In the third stanza of the poem, Roethke points out to the readers that his father was continuously missing steps while they were waltzing. “At every step you missed / my right ear scraped a buckle.” (11-12) . This demonstrates that because of the fact that his father missed steps since he was drunk, resulted in the poet being physically hurt. This part of the poem reveals that the father is now becoming abusive. Roethke’s use of the word “death” in the first stanza, right away implies that the poet was frightened by his father. In the second stanza the poet uses the word “romp” which is associated with playing roughly. This also indicates that it was not very safe for the poet to be waltzing with his father. The mother frowning also demonstrates that she does not approve of this activity. The last stanza of the poem reaffirms that there was violence present. Roethke states “You beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt.” (13-14) . The father’s hand “caked hard by dirt” demonstrates that the father was a hard labor worker but the use of the word “beat” makes this line

In “My Papa’s Waltz” there are a plethora of word twists, hidden meanings, and thought provoking terminology. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the meaning of the word waltz is “a dance performed to music in triple time by couples who, almost embracing each other, swing round and round in the same direction with smooth and even steps, moving on as they gyrate.” The term of the “waltz” in this poem has many intricate, definitions and meanings. The waltz is a formal dance that is being held inside of a kitchen, in a not so formal way or setting. As stated in line 5 “We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf;” with the term “romp” meaning “to play roughly or energetically (esp. of children and animals); to sport or frolic in a lively, light-hearted, or boisterous manner.”(5-6) The son in this poem is enjoying the memory of their time romping whilst the father is being commemorated by his son.

As the poem progresses, the boy’s tone becomes more playful which reinforces the serious statement about how much he cares for his father. The ‘waltz’ becomes less serious when he says, “We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf” (Roethke, 5). Using a word like romped is a deliberate attempt to make a serious event lighthearted and fun. The only reason a child would make this ‘waltz’ playful is because he wants to protect his father, whom he loves. As the last stanza explains, “You beat time on my head…Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.” (Roethke, 13-16) Again, the abuse is compared to a waltz which makes it seem lighthearted. The boy is taking a serious affair and making it into a fun event. He uses this good-natured tone because he loves his father and wants to justify this serious affair.

An Explication Essay of "My Papa's Waltz" Poem Theodore Roethke poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” portrays the fateful memories of the child who is dancing around the kitchen with his/her drunken father, “The whiskey on your breath / such waltzing was not easy” (1-4). However, the dance seems to be very violent to the point of causing destruction in the kitchen as the Roethke indicates, “We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf” (5-6). The poem illustrates the hard experience the child was going through although he or she loves his father too much as Roethke wrote, “But I hung on like death / such waltzing was not easy” (3-4). The speaker noted that the dancing of the drunkard man with the child was not pleasing to the mother at all, “

Continuing the tone of the first stanza, in the second stanza of the poem the word romped makes their waltz sound carefree, but they “romped until the pans/ Slid from the kitchen shelf.” Lines 5 and 6 show how their “waltz” is causing a violent disruption in their home that even the boys’ mother could not tolerate. Again with something that sounds as care free as dancing with your father Roethke implies an undertone of disturbance and violence that is inevitably taking a toll on their family and home life.

In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, was a great poem that can mean many different things to many different people of this world. To me I think it was just a boy who just wanted to spend time with his dad before he has to go to bed. The boy probably does not get to spend time with his dad that much. The father probably works all day and all week and this is the only time the boy gets to spend with him. Roethke use of words in this poem is amazing. The use of the words in this story can mean different things to the reader. The first word to look at is the word waltz. In the dictionary the word waltz is a dance for a fast triple meter song. This is just what the father is doing with his son but his is drunk and dizzy. “But I hung on

The denotation meaning of this line is that a father and his child are playing around the kitchen and making a mess. Yet the connotation meaning is about how a young boy is running away from his father. The waltzing refers to the fact that the father is drunk so he can’t walk properly. The poem continues by saying “The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke 1000).

This poem by Roethke tells of a drunk and seemingly over worked father abusing his son in a terribly violent manner. The first stanza introduces the fact that the boy in the poem has a drunkard for a father by stating “the whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke) and immediately implies abuse by referring to the violence as “waltzing” .It is a common theme in poetry to liken fighting to dance. The abuse is implied to be particularly Sevier when the writer says “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” (Roethke)

Many children throughout time suffer from the trauma of being born to a parent that does more to hurt their child than to help them grow. Parents are crucial to the development of a child’s mental well-being and confidence to become the best version of themselves. Without the guidance, wisdom, and understanding that only comes from a parent, children from that background have a harder time with stability of the mind and life. Instability on both the interior and exterior can only lead to the buildup of many emotions that could corrupt with the slightest trigger. Many do not know how to express their feelings yet some channel their emotions through writing including poems. In “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath, she portrays how an abusive parent can severely affect the mentality of an adult from the trauma of their childhood through the use of allusions, similes, and diction. Her writing allows others to connect to her feelings of mistreatment, anger, and abandonment that she associates with her father.

Parent/child relationship is something that is unique to one parent and child and it is a bond that cannot be broken. The following poems are not an exception to this: A Mother in a Refugee Camp by Chinua Achebe, On My First Sonne by Ben Jonson, Poem at Thirty-Nine by Alice Walker, Praise Song for My Mother by Grace Nichols, Piano by D.H. Lawrence and Digging by Seamus Heaney.

The most important idea in this poem is that of the bonds or ties between parent and child, which are seen as in constant two-way tension, binding together and at the same time pulling apart. The bond is imagined now as a rope, now as a struggle.

In the fourth and last stanza, it is where the author Roethke shows what he has meant to say from the beginning of the poem. The beating time of the head is that the father was measuring the tempo of the waltzing to his head as the boy was small and again the palm with dirt depicts the father’s hard work. The act of that the father took the boy to his bed is simply an action of love, tenderness and warmth. Not any father would do that after a long day of work unless the father feels a deep connection and love towards his child. And by saying that Roethke kept grabbing to his father’s shirt means that he didn’t want to let go of his father. This showed how much affection the boy had

“Parenthood”. Such a powerful word that can have multiple meanings for different people. There can be positive or negative experiences parents go through, especially for new parents. Poetry can illustrate these parental experiences. Parents help guide their children as they mature with age to provide moral guidance, set limits, and provide consequences for unacceptable behavior. Parents are responsible for teaching their child independency, solve problems, and help their child believe deeply in their own abilities. They can accomplish this by being a positive role model, creating a stable and nurturing environment, and engaging in their child’s life. Poems can create a picture of parenthood through the speaker and imagery. The speaker is the voice we hear while we read the poem which can express ideas and feelings; however, the speaker’s feelings and ideas can be different than those of the author (Mays 483). The setting of the poem is the situation that is occurring in the poem (Mays 501). Poems can use specific words to help create imagery to help the reader visualize the situation that is occurring. Poems regarding parenthood use setting and imagery to illuminate the joys and hardships mothers and fathers go through.

The poet can transform their thoughts metaphorically to create a beautiful composition. The author’s emotions can be hidden distinctively by expressing them with fascinating techniques. The writer conveys the poem’s overall feeling which can then be presented as playful, sad, joyful, lonely, or angry. When analyzing a poem, the reader can encounter metaphor, simile, imagery, and mood techniques that will impact their emotions and speculate. Metaphor is a figure of speech to describe one thing from another, however simile is a figure of speech that compares two unlike things. The mood is the overall feeling created by the poem. Imagery is visually descriptive that relates to the perception. After analyzing three poems, which are, My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke, My Father’s Hats by Mark Irwin, and Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden, the view of each poem is that they have similar subject about a son’s memories of his father in different styles with somewhat ambiguous meaning.