“My Papa’s Waltz” was written by Theodore Roethke. This poem is written in iambic trimeter, which is also known as a quantitative meter. This rhythm is meant to emulate a song, creating a cadence that makes the reader FEEL the dance. “My Papa’s Waltz” is about a father and a young son and their experiences together when the father comes home drunk. This piece can be interpreted multiple different ways, positively, negatively and even mixed. The positive, negative and mixed/complex emotions that can be interpreted are conveyed through the vocabulary and word structure throughout the poem. 

Roethke illustrated his words in a manner that allows the poem to be open for interpretation. Because there is no obvious, straight forward “answer” when you first read the poem, the reader most likely read it again. After the second read, there are mixed feelings about the poem. Is it a positive connotation? Is it a negative connotation? In the first stanza, the author is explaining how the dad and son danced in the kitchen and how it was difficult because the dad was drunk. “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; but I hung on like death: such waltzing was not easy.” (1-4) After reading this stanza, it is necessary to read further before making any certain judgment for the overall poem, although it is most likely where one would make their initial opinion. Because of the wording in the stanza, such as: “whiskey on your breath”, “hung on like death”, “waltzing was not easy”, the emotion seems to be like a tug of war, thus causing the reader to have mixed emotions. The fact that the author mentions that the whiskey was overbearing would imply negative. Likewise, “such waltzing was not easy” does not really strike a negative feeling because the Waltz is a hard dance, thus explaining the tug-of-war emotions in vocabulary and word play. 

As a class, the overall, initial emotional opinion of the poem was negative. Roethke chose his words very carefully, making the reader really analyze and think about what the poem is saying. In the third stanza, the words used make the reader lean more towards a negative connotation of the poem. The words lead readers to believe that the father beats his son and that the mother does not approve but cannot necessarily do anything about it. Roethke wrote, “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle; at every step, you missed my right ear scraped a buckle.” (9-12) Most of the words in this stanza would make the reader feel negatively, especially if the reader was not aware of the meanings of the vocabulary. Words like “battered”,  “knuckle” and “scraped a buckle” usually imply beating or abuse, especially with the background information of the father being drunk. It is easy to assume the worst with the words used here because that is generally what is expected with works like these.  

After reading “My Papa’s Waltz” many times with heavy analyzing, it was concluded that the poem can also be interpreted positively. For example, in the fourth stanza, “You beat time on my head, with a palm caked hard by dirt, then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.” (13-16) Although some may interpret this stanza negatively, the positive connotation is that the dad pats his son on the head with his dirty hands from work and the dad danced with his son all the way to bed and the son held on because he did not want the fun to end. Roethke was especially skillful in his wording in the last stanza. With the last stanza being so assumingly negative, it would possibly cause the reader to believe that the whole poem was negative, leaving the slight chance of positivity. 

Theordore Roethke was very artistic when it came to word structure and the ability to convey multiple emotions in his work. The first time reading “My Papa’s Waltz”, I had a negative emotion towards the poem because of past influences that lead me to that conclusion. After close analysis, I found that the poem was written for open interpretation for the audience, giving them the chance to make what they wanted of the work. The way Roethke chose his words and the order he wrote the sentences, was meant to leave the reader with a mixed emotion about the poem. 
