My Papa's Waltz

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. From the very beginning, before the first stanza, we already know what the poem is essentially about. The title reveals to us the main focus of the poem is about a dad and his "waltz". But, upon the first line, this "waltz" that we don't know anything about is revealed as a drunken walk that the speaker, "a small boy"(2), is taking part in, like a dance. Though waltzes are smooth and artistic, this dance was portrayed as a "romp[ing]"(5) dance, not at all as elegant as the traditional waltz. It seems that the father is being a little rough in his drunken state. The boy has trouble keeping up, having to "[hang] on like death", and scrapes his right ear on his dad's buckle. The father "beats" the time of the dance on his head with his "palm caked hard by dirt." His choice in using the word "beat" gives us the impression that it is somewhat abusive, and the description of the hand hardened by the dirt assures us there is nothing gentle in his actions. But all the time he still clings to his shirt. This portrays a theme of admiration in that though the boy is dizzy, continually scrapes his ear on the buckle, and gets beat on the head, he is still clinging to his dad, all the way to his bed. This poem is iambic, containing three stressed syllables, making it trimeter. It follows a standard ABAB rhyme scheme with some slant rhymes here and there, like "dizzy" and "easy" in lines 2 and 4 in the first stanza. But the rhythm of the poem is the same as a waltz. Waltzes are written in 3/4 time, meaning 3 beats per measure. In terms of the poem, there are three stressed syllables per line. My uncle is who I think of when reading this poem. He lives in Missouri, so the only times I would see him was at family gatherings for holidays. And more often than not, he was drunk, or at least getting there. He would tell us jokes and play games with us, and it seemed the drunker he got the funnier he was. Though there was no violence, the admiration was the same that the boy had for his father. Thinking of him brings the smell of alcohol, because you wouldn't have to be too close to him to be able to smell the liquor on his breath. I understand the dizzying feeling this boy portrays, having felt something similar back then.