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Comment 19 of 59, added on June 24th, 2005 at 5:15 AM.
at first i was confused,when i read this poem in school,however in reading some of the comments that was posted before ,i was able to see through the poem more clearly ,and will like to help others who are getting dificulty with it.
in the first stanza of the poem,i analysed it to mean that the effect of the father's behaviour on the boy makes him skeptical in that if he stops dancing,the father might react badly and he wants to be bonded with his father. then in the second stanza,in the lines which state that 'my mother's countenance could not unfrown itself',this simply means that the mother isolates herself from the dancing excitement ,and was angry at the father but did not want to show it since he was drunk.
then in the penultimate stanza when the poet writes that at every step you missed your right ear scraped a buckle,it means that he was short compared to the father and that he got pain,but still enjoyed the dancing.i find this to be quite ironic.
lastly,you beat time on my head meant that this was the rhythm the father gave to the boy when they danced,and i believe it does not has any abusive connotations to it,as the time was beat on his head as he was relatively short compared to the father.the palm caked hard lastly means that,the father was a field labourer.
sati from Trinidad and Tobago, Republic
Comment 18 of 59, added on June 17th, 2005 at 2:32 PM.
“ My Papa’s Waltz” about ( I believe) abusive father. The tone of the poem is pretty strained. On the face of it, it seems that author talks about him and his father having a romp, as a game:he put this “ My mother’s countenance Could not unfrown itself.” But later is “ You beat time on my head…” It’s definitely about regular beating. “ With a palm caked hard by dirt”. I saw an anger in that poem that remained in this author. The poem ends with unfinished battle “Then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.” ”. I was wondered, why author died being pretty young. So, I found that Theodore Roethke was a heavy drinker and died of a heard attack. It tells me he kept his anger for father for years. He calls it My Papa's waltz- it sound to me as a sarcastic title.
Lana from Ukraine
Comment 17 of 59, added on June 6th, 2005 at 12:51 AM.
Yeah. It's playful, because the kid is playing, but it's rough because the dad is drunk. The kid doesn't quite understand it, he jsut wants to play with his father, and they're doin some kind of funky rambunctious father-son dance thing, and the dad is drunk and the kid probably gets hurt a little but not too bad and the father isn't really hurting him too much intentionally so much as just being drunk and clumsy, which is why the mother is more unhappy than actually screaming, crying, etc. because her son is being beat, because he's not she's just dissappointed because her husband is drunk and being noisy and making a mess.
Daniel from Saint Kitts and Nevis
Comment 16 of 59, added on May 22nd, 2005 at 1:46 PM.
In my humble opinion (and in the opinion of my 10th grade English teacher way back when) this poem is a memory about a small boy whose father worked long hours, came back drunken, and "danced" his son to bed at night. Needless to say, the father was/is an alcoholic.
Douglas Forrester from United States
Comment 15 of 59, added on May 16th, 2005 at 5:57 PM.
I feel that this poem represents a young man trying to find a way to express his desolation after the loss of his father. To me it is a recolation of a happy moment in Roethke's childhood where hhe stood on his father's feet as his father waltzed around the room. I used to do the same thing with my own father. It doesnt seem to me that there was any abuse (at the time) but his "pain" was that of losing his father.
Emily from United States
Comment 14 of 59, added on May 16th, 2005 at 4:26 PM.
One can most certainly interpret a poem wrong. I, for one, believe the poem is about Theodore Roethke's first ride in an airplane. And really, if all of us are here to pointedly pronounce our own opinions without trying to convince anyone of anything and instigating nothing but an argument, what is the point of posting?
Guy from Czech Republic
Comment 13 of 59, added on May 10th, 2005 at 7:58 PM.
I am jut going to say that this poem was written in a different time period from ours. There are certain things that seem unthinkable now that weren't uncommon then. Also, his father was a gadener who owned a green house. When was the last time you heard of a gardener hurting somebody who did not deserve it?
Bryce Fisher from United States
Comment 12 of 59, added on May 5th, 2005 at 1:05 AM.
I believe that in this poem the narrator is remembering an abusive cildhood, although Roethke never directly states this.
The very tight structured format in which the peom was written - 4 stanza's; iambic pentameter - leads me to beleive that the auther still has not yet fully delt with the emotions associated with an abusive father, and so he tries to conceal them from himself via the tight structure of the poem, and perhaps from the reader as well.
He does give you clues to the fact that abuse did occur however. For example, when the narrator says that the hand that held his wrist was battered on one knuckle, i immediately thought of the fact that when you punch someone, your knuckles do often bruise.
His mother's countenance could not unfrown itself because no mother happily watches her son being abused, and maybe she thought that she was next.
When he says that his father beat time on his head, i took this line to mean that his father constantly abused him day in and day out. The last two lines of the poem to me perfectly reflects the mindset of a child being abused by a parent- regardless of the pain, you still love that parent and will continue to be dependent on that parent, eventually you may even begin to believe that you were deserving of the abuse.
Jackie Dean from United States
Comment 11 of 59, added on May 3rd, 2005 at 7:05 PM.
I agree. You can not decide whetehr an interpretation is wrong.
Max from United States
Comment 10 of 59, added on May 1st, 2005 at 10:24 PM.
There is certainly nothing "wrong" with different interpretations. Personally, I don't make the abuse correlation, and certainly see no evidence of sexual abuse. Evident from the word choice in the line "At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle," I see it as a playful bedtime ritual. The syntax here should help channel our feeling of the poem and what we think about the "waltz". Had he written "a buckle scrape my right ear" there would be a genuine concern for the child. I don't know if you ever "waltzed" on your father's feet, or had your children on your feel, but children often cling on for dear life. You know, as if the floor is quicksand, alligators etc. "Such waltzing was not easy" for the child to hold on, nor for the father to walk with the child on his feet. And as far as the line "You beat time on my head," I see it as just holding just a musical connotation.
Bryan from United States
This poem has been commented on more than 10 times. Click below to see the other comments.
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at first i was confused,when i read this poem in school,however in reading some of the comments that was posted before ,i was able to see through the poem more clearly ,and will like to help others who are getting dificulty with it.
in the first stanza of the poem,i analysed it to mean that the effect of the father's behaviour on the boy makes him skeptical in that if he stops dancing,the father might react badly and he wants to be bonded with his father. then in the second stanza,in the lines which state that 'my mother's countenance could not unfrown itself',this simply means that the mother isolates herself from the dancing excitement ,and was angry at the father but did not want to show it since he was drunk.
then in the penultimate stanza when the poet writes that at every step you missed your right ear scraped a buckle,it means that he was short compared to the father and that he got pain,but still enjoyed the dancing.i find this to be quite ironic.
lastly,you beat time on my head meant that this was the rhythm the father gave to the boy when they danced,and i believe it does not has any abusive connotations to it,as the time was beat on his head as he was relatively short compared to the father.the palm caked hard lastly means that,the father was a field labourer.
sati from Trinidad and Tobago, Republic