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- Grey Territory -(1)- at storywrite
He emerged from a side street onto the main road. The street was charred black; the exhaust from passing cars was simply the ashes of past experiences being stirred up. & - The Timekeeper (-0-) at storywrite
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on My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke, on November 6, 2005it's not that you're saying that no one can relate to abuse, but that because you dont see enough evidence (whether there is or not), you will assume that it's happy and "sweeter" is a bit misguided. That's what I've been trying to get across thus far.
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on My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke, on November 5, 2005Forgive me. Prior to now, I thought that I was dealing with a poet. I assumed that you understood more about what positive and negative poetry have the potential to convey emotionally. Give me a poem about how it sucks that your girlfriend left you, and give me a poem about how a strak of sunlight is analogous to love, and I will dismiss them both, the latter more so.
Good, lasting, powerful poetry has nothing to do with subject matter; that is, both good and bad poetry could be written about any topic.
And in regards to the surface layer over the deeper meaning, I wish that for once, poetry would be taken away from the hands of the professors, and that people would take a poem as it's written. -
on My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke, on November 4, 2005im not a product of ap. it seems, however, like you are. the other kind. not the cutter kind, but the kind who wants to pretend that poetry is a pretty wonderful thing, when it's often very messy and unhappy.
people do want to feel good, yourself included. unfortunately, people often do not feel as good as they might wish.
in response to the only actual arguent i could find in that first response, the clinging to the shirt is out of fear for what his father is becoming as an alcoholic, the fear of the contrast between the father he knew, and the father who beats him. he's clinging to him as the only thing he knows to do, out of a hope that his clinging will bring back the father he does know. (remember, this took place at a quite young age, roethke's father died when roethke was very young).
as ive said before, you have some sort of roadblock to believing that poetry can be written effectively about traumatic experiences. I assure you that it can (abuse being a traumatic experience), and I assure you that this poem is in fact about that abuse. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.
Edited on Nov 04, 7:03 p.m. because ''. -
on My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke, on November 3, 2005Silver Fox, I believe that you, in fact, miss the intended point.
Understandably, the short, regular meter, sing-song rhyme scheme, and term "waltz" in the title, could originally give the impression that this is a pleasant-spirited dance, however, for reasons I will state, I feel that this sing-song, playful tone is in fact sarcastic.
1) "But I hung on like death"
There are any number of ways for him to describe his hanging on as his father dances him around. Yet to choose "like death" to describe this attempt to not be overtaken in the "dance", is a quite obvious reference to the sarcasm in the tone, and the actuality of the "waltz".
2) "The hand that held my wrist"
Despite appearing an innocuous line, neither supporting nor refuting any interpretation, it is a very telling phrase. How many dances or waltzes do you know, even if it is a drunk father teaching his son as you suggest, where the dancers would hold each other by the wrist. There is actually a reason that this appears in no dances. Without some effort, two people have a hard time holding each other by the wrist. In the one position where this is possible, it is useless in most dances, because it restricts movement almost exclusively to moving from side to side. Also, it is "the hand that held [his] wrist"; no reference to an plural wrist holding. The fact that the father has the son held by the wrist implies that he is being dominant, in other words, beating the child.
3) "You beat time on my head"
This was used by Davidson above to support the theory of dancing lessons. However, when Davidson refers to the line, he says, "keeping time by patting time on his sons head". Davidson actually brings out in that phrase the two reasons that that line indicates drunken abuse. The first is obvious. When Davidson describes the action, he describes it as "patting". However, it was specifically stated in the poem as "[he] beat time". That word choice cannot have been unintentional. The reason for me saying that? Read more Roethke. He obsesses over word choice. However, there is more indication than simply the relative brutality of the word "beat". The coloquial phrase is not at all "to beat time", but as Davidson himself phrased it, "to keep time". This eliminates any doubt at all as to the intention of the word choice. If Roethke were being careless with his word choice, he would simply have said, "You kept time on my head". He did not do this. He chose deliberately to replace the typical phrase with a pretty brutal verb. This is to call attention to the sarcasm in tone, and to the intended meaning of the poem.
As it would turn out (do a google search if you're doubtful), Roethke had a drinking problem himself, and also had severe psychological trauma from his experiences with his father and his father's death while Roethke was young.
I understand the drive for some people to interpret this poem as pleasant and wistfully nostalgic, but it is in fact nothing of the sort. To these people (and I have met quite a few), I would simply remind them of this: poetry isn't a pretty thing, and it is not a tool for documenting the pretty. It is a tool for documenting the true, the real, and the emotional. When these are unpleasant, our job is not to misinterpret poetry, but to cringe if need be, and to take a greater understanding of people, and of ourselves as people, from it.
Edited on Nov 03, 11:13 p.m. because 'spelling'.
