My Papa's Waltz

Confessional in spirit, viewing madness as a transforming force, Theodore Roethke's poetry explores the depths of the self, attempting to achieve wholeness through destruction. His verse is finely-crafted, full of stunning images and chant-like rhythms, which echo the poetry of T. S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats. From his Modernist masters, along with others such as Gerald Manley Hopkins, Roethke learned to find objects in nature which crystallized his poetic emotions. He drew upon his …

…with a compelling image of his father's authoritarian nature -- when he carries the child off to bed, one senses that his decision was not negotiable and the child's needs were not paramount: "Then waltzed me off to bed / Still clinging to your shirt." But Roethke's final image also possesses a remarkable vulnerability, an aspect that lends the memory of his father a haunting quality, a tenderness that somewhat softens the portrait that preceded it.