James Dickey, the Poet Laureate when Theodore Roethke died in 1963, once said, “I once had the nerve to ask Picasso the question, 'What is art?' He answered, 'Art is a lie which makes us see the truth.” (Dickey). Poetry is a form of art that takes certain type of intellectual understanding to properly interpret the poem being read. Depending on the reader, there could be different interpretations of the same poem. Not all poems are necessarily filled with glee and joy, rather, some are darker and depressing; nevertheless, both types of poems tell the story conveying the true emotion of the situation. The poem My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke, is a magnificent poem that tells a short story from Theodore Roethke’s childhood. Although writing is a different form of art from painting and sculpting, it is still a piece of work that reveals the truth in something; therefore, James Dickey’s statement about art reigns true within poetry because poetry uses symbols, strong language, and rhyme scheme to portray the full story in detail.  

Theodore Roethke grew up living in Michigan with his uncle and father, where they managed a twenty-five-acre greenhouse. This is an important detail to the story in the poem because the setting of where the story helps to bring out the emotion in the reader, so they can feel what the author felt. The setting is one of the important symbols that come from this poem. Theodore Roethke stated in the poem, “The whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy:” (Roethke). This implies that the father has been drinking and could possibly be an alcoholic. The significance of this quote is that the father is drunkenly conversing with his child, which could mean he could have beaten the child. Similarly, in another quote, Theodore Roethke wrote, “The hand that held my wrist/ Was battered on one knuckle;/ At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle.” (Roethke). The significance of this quote has a double meaning in it because the hand could be battered from working all day in the greenhouse, or it could be battered from beating the kid it was grabbing. In conclusion, these two quotes, although not juxtapose one another in the poem, are important together because they help to show what is happening in the story. The father is certainly drunk, but whether he is actually dancing with the son or is beating him, is up for interpretation. The son could be actually dancing with him, and when he scraped his ear on the belt buckle, he could be accidentally hitting it on the belt. But, because the father has battered knuckles, it could also mean that the father was beating the son, possibly with the belt as well.

The strong language used in the poem helps evoke, in the reader’s head, a stronger feeling and emotion toward the actions happening in the story. In the poem, Theodore Roethke said, “You beat time on my head/ With a palm caked in dirt, / Then waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt.” (Roethke). The negative connotation of this quote means that the father physically beat the child to understand that the father was older and was in charge, hence the “Palm caked by hard dirt” where the hard dirt was the beatings. It could also mean that the father was teaching the child the rhythm of the dance and needed to understand the timing of the dance. In addition, Roethke uses phrases like “Still clinging to your shirt” and “You beat time on my head” to give the reader a chance to to evaluate what they think is happening, thus making it difficult to pin point exactly what they writer originally meant. The reader could see clinging to the father’s shirt as the son not wanting to quit dancing for the night, or he was beaten so badly that he could not stand, and the father had to carry him to bed. The language in this stanza can help to shine light on which connotation the writer means, but it is still open to interpretation.

Rhyme used by Theodore Roethke was imperative to the poem by giving a specific flow. Theodore Roethke wrote, “We romped until the pans/ Slid from the kitchen shelf;/ My mother’s countenance/ Could not unfrown itself” (Roethke). The rhythm gives the poem a specific mood where some stanza’s had different moods. The mother in the poem could be mad about the pans sliding to the floor because the drunk father is knocking them down. She could also be sad form the father beating the child, and knocking things over in a drunken rage. The moods of the poem change based on whether the reader perceives the father as good or bad. Similarly, the motion of a waltz is a slow circular motion with repetitive steps. The poem is like a waltz because uses a cycle of rhyme with every other line rhyming with one another to help the flow of the poem, but to also cycle the language around where it is open for different meanings. This motion is a symbol of the constant cycle of the relationship the father and the son have together. However, the poem is not like a waltz because it physically isn’t a dance, rather a power struggle between father and son. This struggle had some meaning to the the writer’s life because he a had to tell the story.

Like James Dickey said, “Art is a lie in which makes us see truth”, where Theodore Roethke creates a magnificent piece of art that is open for interpretation. My Papa’s Waltz creates a story where we can see the truth in the father and son’s lives, from the ever-changing relationship between them. There are two perceptions from this poem that leave the meaning open for the reader to decide. The poem illustrates the truth between the father and the son through the use of symbols, the strong language, and rhyme scheme used throughout the poem.
