Reading Response/ Reflection

My Papa's Waltz
By Theodore Roethke


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 buckle.

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



I think this poem can be seen from different perspectives. Some may say that the father is abusive and others may say that he is not. I think that the father is not abusing his son, he just gets carried away and shows his love for his son in a different way.


If you read the poem, it does not say that the father beats him.( I can see why some people would think that though.) When you read the lines: At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle, you may think that the little boy is getting hurt, but he really isn't. The poet was trying to explain that he was small when this was happening and that he was small enough to get brushed by his father's belt once in a while. The other line is: You beat time on my head, with a palm caked hard with dirt. Here, the poet was trying to say that the father was tapping beats on to his head to dance the waltz. It never said softly or hard, so that will remain a mystery. The father did not mean harm and you can tell by the way the little boy reacted. He clinged on to  and danced with his dad, even when he was a little drunk. I think it was all meant to symbolize love.


This poem reminded me of the book Angela's Ashes. Sometimes Frank's father would come home drunk and wake up Frank and his brothers just to make them all promise to die for Ireland. Sleepily, they would all promise to die for Ireland, and if they were lucky, they'd get a penny.