My Papa's Waltz
No, no writing yet. But a poem which I would be interested to see people’s interpretations of. My senior-year English teacher had an interpretation of this one that he was pretty certain of, but reading it again a year-and-a-half later, I’m not able to tease the same meaning out of these sparse lines.
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’ll offer my teacher’s interpretation in a couple of days, after
everyone has had a chance to scratch their heads a bit and share their
own opinions.
Pesky Godson
Now that’s a poem – with meter and rhyme and meaning. I think there’s a lot of sentimental stuff out there thinly disguised as poetry. Most of it is awful. In fact, if I were to write poetry, my stuff would fall into that very category. Here is a sample:
My papa big and tall
Beat me when I was small
And now that I am old
Dem scars dey big and bold.
Dem and dey lifted from Eddie Murphy’s Buckwheat character on SNL
But back to Roethke. In Len Glass’s immortal words, “Bad breath is better than no breath at all.”
Comment by michael — May 23, 2006 @ 6:59 am
Besides an acute sense of dejà vu, I sense no euphemisms or oblique references here. Dad was a dancing fool of a drunk, but the author wouldn’t use the word romp to apply to abuse, or its precursor, and “frown” is our visage’s lightest form of censure, and passive, so even mom wasn’t wholly at odds. Other words — such as “held” — offset the lone alarm word, “beat”, which is perfectly idiomatic in regards to musical time. And even “scraped a buckle” seems but a colorful sketch of relative height (though why one holds a wrist … ).
I make of this a fond remembrance of a dead father.
Comment by el Kib — May 23, 2006 @ 7:59 am
I agree with El Kib. Dad, though inebriated, still danced an uneasy dance with his son. I think it’s poignant.
Comment by La Rad — May 23, 2006 @ 8:13 am
The kid is clinging and hanging on like death. It is not an easy waltz. It is, in fact, so rough, pans slide off shelves and the mother cannot stop frowning. The kid’s ear is scraped and he is being held by the wrist. The guy’s knuckle is battered. These are not cozy images. The guy is more than a drunk; he is a rough drunk. The kid loves him and is afraid and bewildered. That’s what I think.
PG’s professor probably thinks it’s a poem about God and war.
Comment by sister karamazov — May 23, 2006 @ 7:38 pm
Theodore Roethke reading My Papa’s Waltz.
Comment by michael — May 23, 2006 @ 8:38 pm
I’m with Michael and sister K. on this one … although would I be if I hadn’t heard Michael’s comments before? (Hearing the reading though, I dunno, it’s got an awfully cheery tone.) But I don’t think all those negative words would have been chosen if the father wasn’t an abusive man — death, battered, scraped, hard, beat. The love is there too.
God and war? Is there a fourth option? Do tell.
Comment by Jennifer — May 23, 2006 @ 10:18 pm
The father is a falling down drunk, thus the battered knuckle, missed steps causiing scraping to the kid’s ear, pans falling off shelves, the kid hanging on for dear life, the unhappy mother. These are not warm fuzzy memories. For me, that the writer called this a waltz and referred to the dance as a romp, were the only hints that the child might have loved the father despite the abuse. That’s what I think.
Comment by The Other Sister K — May 24, 2006 @ 10:40 am
Papa did not fall down (in this passage, anyway), and your average working class (read, dirt-caked) everyman has battered knuckles — has anybody shook or held Mike’s hands … ? Little kids being “walked” on their parent’s feet cling feverishly to their pantleg, though they’d not yet think to say “like death” (and it’s a reminiscive adult using that phrase anyway … ).
I’ll grant the likely chaotic emotion, but fear’s a reach — the boy hung on and clung himself, in no way that we can see restrained against his will. And how could being waltzed off to bed be anything but a fond memory … ? “Fuzzy”, as in gently nurturing, no,– but surely “warm” …
Comment by el Kib — May 24, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
I just think a different set of words to describe the experience would have been chosen if the father wasn’t an abusive one — not that this experience was itself abuse. This was a happy memory of an abusive (and beloved by his son if not by his wife) man. PG, I’m ready for your teacher’s interpretation.
Comment by Jennifer — May 24, 2006 @ 3:39 pm
Yeah, PG, how about a third interpretation?
Comment by michael — May 24, 2006 @ 5:49 pm
My teacher argued pretty much Jennifer did in comment #9. After reading all of your ideas, I think I see where he was coming from, and I also think I see why it’s hard to pick up on. The difficulty is that this particular scene is not abusive, rather, the abuse is alluded to with the vocabulary and through the way that the son relates to his father.
Sorry first Sister Karamazov (and which one is that?), no God or War, although I’m sure an argument could be made if one worked at it. Perhaps someone would like to give it a go?
Comment by pesky godson — May 24, 2006 @ 6:00 pm