blog 10

I really loved the poem “My papas waltz” by Roethke. I might have the wrong idea but the first time through the poem I got the feeling that is was more about an abusive father who drinks and waltzing being a type of dance I assumed is describing maybe that this was a common thing for the abuse to happen so it’s more like a routine. The first time around I felt like this was a poem about abuse and they are not actually dancing but the son is really being abused because in the first stanza it talks about the father having noticeable whiskey on his breathe and then “waltzing” with his son while he hung on like death. To me it just didn’t seem right; if I was a father (size of an ordinary man) so drunk I probably shouldn’t be so aggressive like doing the waltz with a small boy (my son), something that he hung on to death for, and that’s another thing the way it was described “But I hung on like death”, and I think he met he hung on REALLY tight but to me if you have to hold on that tight it just doesn’t seem like that would be fun. Then he said “such waltzing” which to me meant it wasn’t really waltzing, but it was a routine of abuse. In the 2^nd stanza, what I got from this was that the father and son were being so rough, lively, that the pans slid from the shelf and the mother was frowning, this stanza is where I kind of started to rethink what the poem was about, but I still leaned towards an abusive father. In this stanza people might say well if it was abuse why didn’t the mother help well in some situations and households the children are abused and there is nothing the mothers can do they too scared are abused , regardless if the mother is right or wrong or if you are me would choose to do it, this kind of stuff happens. Then in stanza 3 he says “the hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle, and every step you missed” obviously if the dad is intoxicated he’d been drinking for a minute so maybe he was in a previous fight with someone or even his wife and that’s why they said knuckle because think about it, he didn’t just batter his knuckle dancing, he didn’t say his hand or his fingers or anything else he said his knuckles, when you ball up your fist and you sock someone usually you damage your knuckles. And the fact that he used battered why couldn’t he use damaged, hurt, pain, we usually associate battered with assault like “battered woman” “battery and assault’ I don’t know that’s what I got out of that, and every step he missed I don’t think was a reference to missing steps of the dance but actually missing steps because he was drunk. In the last stanza I wasn’t too sure about the first two lines but the last lines he said ‘Then waltz me off to bed, still clinging to your shirt”, to me he is clinging on because he is scared, when I cling on to something is because I’m scared or scared to lose something but I don’t ever remember a pleasant time I just didn’t feel a happy poem, That’s how I feel about that. After I read it that was my initial response but I read it two more times and I started to get another meaning out of the poem. Maybe the dad is drunk and comes home to see his family and maybe they really are “waltzing” or playing or whatever but there doing it so rough they knock the pans off the shelf and the mom is mad that’s why she frowns. And maybe his hands were battered from work from early because he hasn’t been home that’s why the father is so excited to see his son, then his father finally goes put him to bed. I think both ways are possible and regardless it was a REALLY good poem.