{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"161: Theodore Roethke: "My Papa's Waltz"","description":"This week on StoryWeb: Theodore Roethke\u2019s poem \u201cMy Papa\u2019s Waltz,\u201d A story contained in sixteen short lines of poetry \u2013 that is Theodore Roethke\u2019s \u201cMy Papa\u2019s Waltz.\u201d This autobiographical poem tells of a little boy dancing with his drunk father as his frowning mother looks on. How to read this poem? Is the speaker a man looking back at his drunken father with affection or remembering the fear he felt at his father\u2019s whiskey binges? Love and fear simultaneously? There is mixed, conflicted affection in the poem. The boy hangs on \u201clike death\u201d and acknowledges that \u201csuch waltzing was not easy.\u201d But he also mentions \u201c[t]he hand that held my wrist\u201d and says that his father \u201cwaltzed me off to bed \/ Still clinging to your shirt.\u201d Despite the intimacy, however, it\u2019s impossible not to notice the hard, nearly brutal images in the poem. The father dances around the room so roughly that pans slide off the kitchen shelf. The father\u2019s hand is \u201cbattered.\u201d The boy\u2019s ear \u201cscrape[s]\u201d his father\u2019s belt buckle. The father \u201cbeat[s] time on my head \/ With a palm caked hard by dirt.\u201d These images hint of domestic violence \u2013 the father toward the boy or the father toward the mother, perhaps both. However you read this poem, it is a poem of great intimacy \u2013 the grown man looking back at what passed for a close moment with his father. While it\u2019s undeniable that the poem reveals the harsh side of the speaker\u2019s father, the poem also reveals a tenderness between the father and the boy, the affection (if conflicted) the boy feels for the father. Even the boy himself seems to wonder how he was supposed to feel. He\u2019s \u201cdizzy\u201d \u2013 a state that can be good or bad. And he says, \u201cSuch waltzing was not easy.\u201d As he dances a fragile dance between his father and his mother, he hangs on like death, clings to his father as best he can. The title of the volume in which the poem appears \u2013 The Lost Son \u2013 may give us a clue as to how to read the poem, whether a fond remembrance of affection or a terrifying memory of fear. But even when we acknowledge that the \u201clost son\u201d sounds negative, we are left with two opposing words: \u201clost\u201d and \u201cson.\u201d Loss, abandonment, pain are acknowledged, but so too is the relationship of father and son. This volume of poetry, published in 1948, was Roethke\u2019s breakthrough book. The poem is likely based on Roethke\u2019s own childhood. He was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan, where his German immigrant father, Otto, owned and ran a twenty-five-acre greenhouse. When Roethke was fourteen, his father died of cancer and his uncle committed suicide. The great feeling of abandonment that sprang up in Roethke\u2019s life intertwined with his own alcoholism and his profound struggles with manic depression. Despite this pain or perhaps because of it, Roethke\u2019s poetry has an unusual power and grace. To learn more about Roethke, visit the Poetry Foundation website, the Biography website, or the Modern American Poetry website. Poet Stanley Kunitz offers an insightful and heartfelt tribute to Roethke, and in an interview, Native American author Sherman Alexie acknowledges his debt to Roethke, saying that \u201cI\u2019ve spent my whole career rewriting \u2018My Papa\u2019s Waltz\u2019 with an Indian twist.\u201d These last two resources come from the outstanding Poetry Society of America website. To explore Roethke\u2019s poetry more fully, check out his collection The Waking, which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954. It includes his famous title poem, which reads in part, \u201cI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. \/ I learn by going where I have to go.\u201d You might also enjoy The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke and Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. If you are a writer, you\u2019ll enjoy Roethke\u2019s book On Poetry and Craft. Visit thestoryweb.com\/Roethke to listen to Theodore Roethke read \u201cMy Papa\u2019s Waltz.\u201d You can also watch a 1964 film about Theodore Roethke, In a Dark Time, which features footage of Roethke reading selected poems, including \u201cThe Waking.\u201d   ","author_name":"StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups","author_url":"http:\/\/storyweb.libsyn.com\/webpage","html":"