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“My Papa’s Waltz” Introduction
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“My Papa’s Waltz” was written by the American poet Theodore Roethke. It was first published in 1942, then collected in his book The Lost Son and Other Poems in 1948. At first glance, the poem describes a charming family scene: a father and son dance together in the kitchen, roughhousing and romping around. But the speaker supplies a number of hints that things aren’t quite as happy as they seem. The poem subtly reflects on the tension between fathers and sons—tension that in turn may suggest undercurrents of violence.
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“My Papa’s Waltz” Summary
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Your breath smelled so strongly of whiskey that it would make a small boy like me woozy. But I hung onto you as hard as I could anyway. It wasn’t easy to dance with you.
We danced around the kitchen, loudly and roughly, until we knocked the pans from the kitchen shelf. My mother’s face was stuck in a permanent frown.
You held my wrist with your hand; I could see that one of your knuckles was bruised. Every time you missed a step in the dance, my right ear scraped against your belt buckle.
You beat the rhythm of the dance on my head with your hard, dirty palm. Then you danced me off to bed, while I clung to your shirt.
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“My Papa’s Waltz” Themes
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Fathers, Sons, and Masculinity
“My Papa’s Waltz” is a complex and ambiguous poem. On its surface, it describes a rowdy and charming bit of roughhousing between a father and his young son as they dance together in the kitchen late at night. But the speaker consistently suggests that there's some unease in his relationship with his father, and the poem even hints at the possibility of violence between the two. The waltz the speaker describes isn’t just a literal dance, but also an extended metaphor for the speaker's conflicted feelings towards his father—a powerful man the speaker seems to at once admire and fear. The poem describes both the deep love between them and the serious tensions that divide them—tensions fueled, the poem implies, in part by the limitations of traditional masculinity.
Much of the speaker’s language suggests that this dance, their “waltz,” is lighthearted. For instance, the speaker refers to it as a “romp.” Their dancing is a little unsteady, sure, but there's still plenty of tenderness. Indeed, the poem ends with the speaker being carried to bed by his dad—a sweet ending to this late-night rendezvous. However, the speaker also makes a number of subtle suggestions that undermine this happy picture. The poem starts with the father so drunk that just smelling his breath makes the speaker “dizzy.” This suggests that the father isn’t just having a drink or two; he’s seriously drunk and the speaker is unsettled, even scared of him.
The speaker also describes how his father knocks the “pans” from the “kitchen shelf.” Even if they’re just dancing, this means that things have gotten pretty rough and out of control. And the father’s knuckle is “battered”—which suggests that he’s injured his hand somehow, perhaps through a violent act. Most tellingly, the speaker describes how the father “beat time” on his head. The phrase has two meanings: on the one hand, the father is just counting the beats of the waltz. On the other hand, “beat” can imply violence, or, maybe, even abuse.
Thus even though the speaker never explicitly claims that his father is violent—or even acknowledges that there's tension between them—the poem is full of moments that suggest conflict. In part, these moments might reflect the limits of conventional masculinity. The father seems to be the head of the household—revealed by the fact that his mother can only stand off to the side and frown during this scene—and is implied to be some sort of laborer as well, a strong, rough man whose palms are "caked hard by dirt." This "hardness" might reflect more than just calloused hands, and can also be taken as a symbol for the difficulty the speaker's father has in expressing affection in a softer way—and the difficulty the speaker has in seeing his father as a source of tenderness in addition to being a voice of authority.
Despite all this, the speaker remains passionately attached to his father. He describes hanging onto him "like death"—even though it's hard to keep up with his drunken father, who keeps stumbling and missing the beat in their waltz. Once again, this is an ambiguous statement. On the one hand, it captures the speaker's devotion to his father. But on the other hand, it suggests that the speaker's love for his father is damaging—it is "like death" for him. Even in moments of tenderness and affection, these two people can’t quite connect: they are out of step, their relationship marred by the threat of violence.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-16
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “My Papa’s Waltz”
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Lines 1-4
The whiskey on ...
... was not easy.The poem begins with the speaker describing a memory from his childhood. The speaker's father comes home drunk, and the smell of whiskey on his breath is so strong that it makes the speaker, still a young boy, “dizzy.” Father and son waltz around their kitchen (a waltz is a kind of ballroom dance), which is difficult for the boy because his drunken dad is wobbly and unsteady. Even so, the boy clings on tightly—maybe out of fear, maybe out of love, likely out of a combination of both.
There’s something playful and spontaneous about this dance, which is likely a scene familiar to many readers; think of how little kids may stand on their father's feet as the two swirl around. On the surface, at least, it's a touching memory that suggests a close relationship between father and son. However, the speaker makes a couple of hints in these opening lines that his relationship with his father isn't as happy as it might seem. For example, the speaker hangs on “like death.” The simile is a little disturbing. Literally, the speaker is just describing how tightly he hangs on to his father. But the simile also suggests that dancing with his father is like death: that, when he does so, the speaker is in danger. This danger could be physical: the father might hurt the speaker (accidentally, out of drunkenness, or otherwise).
The end-stop at the end of line 3 emphasizes these ambiguities. It breaks a pattern of enjambments and end-stops that the poem follows elsewhere. Generally, the poem alternates enjambed and end-stopped lines: line 1, for example, is enjambed ("... breath / Could ...") and line 2 end-stopped ("... dizzy;"). The poem breaks that pattern just once, in line 3, which ends with a colon:
But I hung on like death:
The out-of-place end-stop makes the reader pause over the word "death" and consider its darker implications.
The poem's form also suggests that something's not quite right. Note, for instance, the stanza's uneven meter. The poem generally alternates between lines like line 1, which is in iambic trimeter, and lines like line 2, which is also in iambic trimeter, but ends with an extra unstressed syllable. (This is called a catalectic foot). Remember that an iamb is a poetic foot with an unstressed-stressed, or da DUM, pattern of beats; trimeter just means there are three of these iambs per line. Take lines 1-2:
The whis- | key on | your breath
Could make | a small | boy dizzy;Iambic trimeter is a close approximation of the rhythm of a waltz: a waltz has three beats per measure and a line of iambic trimeter has three stresses per line. So the first line of the poem feels like a waltz—and then the second line breaks the rhythm, adding a little hiccup at the end. In a way, the second line mimics the father’s drunken dancing—the way he tries to keep the beat but keeps missing steps. Similarly, the slant rhyme in lines 2 and 4, between “dizzy” and “easy,” again suggest that something is off, that something doesn’t quite line up or connect between father and son.
As such, the poem’s form is full of hints of unease and violence. The “waltz” that the father and son share is thus not just a literal event: it is also an extended metaphor for their relationship. Like their relationship itself, this dance is complicated and unsteady, mixing together love, playfulness, and tension.
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Lines 5-8
We romped until ...
... not unfrown itself.
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Lines 9-12
The hand that ...
... scraped a buckle. -
Lines 13-16
You beat time ...
... to your shirt.
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“My Papa’s Waltz” Symbols
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Pans
The “pans” that appear in line 5 symbolize the household that father, son, and mother share. Pans are domestic objects. Used for cooking and feeding a family, pans are closely connected to the most intimate and nourishing rituals. They represent how families come together for meals, working together to nourish and support each other. Thus, there’s irony in the fact that the father and son knock the pans down as they waltz around the kitchen—they are disrupting symbols of family unity and togetherness, even as they do something that might look like bonding or playing.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 5: “pans”
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Waltz
The “waltz” that father and son dance together in “My Papa’s Waltz” is a symbol for the relationship between them. In other words, the father and son aren’t—only—literally dancing together. Their dance is also a symbol for the dynamics of their relationship with each other. As the poem describes it, their relationship is complicated and ambiguous: even as the son is dedicated to his father, there is serious tension, even violence, in their relationship. The symbol that describes their relationship is thus similarly ambiguous—and different readers might see different things. On the one hand, it is sweet and charming to imagine father and son dancing together. But on the other hand, their waltz registers the tension—even the violence—between them.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 4: “waltzing”
- Line 15: “waltzed”
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“My Papa’s Waltz” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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End-Stopped Line
“My Papa’s Waltz” uses enjambment and end-stop in a very predictable way: usually, every other line is end-stopped. For instance, in the poem’s second stanza, lines 6 and 8 are both end-stopped:
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.The stanza is divided into two halves, each of which contains a complete sentence. In lines 5-6, the speaker describes how he and his father knock down the pans as they romp around the kitchen. In lines 7-8, he describes his mother’s reaction: she can’t stop frowning. The end-stop in line 6 cleanly separates these two sentences. And similarly, the end-stop in line 8 cleanly separates this stanza from the next.
Indeed, each stanza in the poem ends on a period. As a result each stanza feels discrete, almost like a series of snapshots that come together to paint a picture of the speaker’s childhood. The poem is thus tightly organized and controlled. This is important: while the father may be drunk and out of control, missing steps in the waltz, the speaker is very much in control of the poem. The poem’s tightly organized end-stops thus underline the differences between father and son—and emphasize the tensions between them.
There is one place in the poem where the speaker breaks his pattern of enjambments and end stops. Line 3 is end-stopped, even though elsewhere in the poem the third line of each stanza is enjambed:
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.The speaker breaks the pattern here for a good reason. In line 3, he describes how he hangs on tightly to his father. The line is a testament to the love that the speaker feels for his father. The speaker remains attached to his father, despite the ambiguity of this dance. But the simile ("like death") also introduces some disturbing implications: the word “death” makes it seem like the speaker is in danger of hurting himself because of his attachment to his father. The end-stop emphasizes and underlines this implication. It makes the line feel abrupt and final—just like death. In other words, the end-stop makes it feel like the speaker’s commitment to his father isn’t simply a matter of touching dedication—it is, itself, a kind of death.
Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:- Line 2: “dizzy;”
- Line 3: “death:”
- Line 4: “easy.”
- Line 6: “shelf;”
- Line 8: “itself.”
- Line 10: “knuckle;”
- Line 12: “buckle.”
- Line 14: “dirt,”
- Line 16: “shirt.”
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Enjambment
Unlock all 281 words of this analysis of Enjambment in “My Papa’s Waltz,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Simile
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Extended Metaphor
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“My Papa’s Waltz” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Waltz
- Romped
- Unfrown
- Unfrown
- Buckle
- Beat Time
- Caked Hard
Waltz-
(Location in poem: Line 4: “waltzing”; Line 15: “waltzed”)
A ballroom dance. The music for waltzes is in ¾ time. In other words, there are three beats in each musical measure. Roethke recreates the feeling of a waltz with the meter of his poem, iambic trimeter, which also has three beats per line.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “My Papa’s Waltz”
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Form
“My Papa’s Waltz” has four stanzas, each of them four lines long. That means the poem has a total of 16 lines, divided into quatrains. It’s written in a modified version of iambic trimeter and rhymed ABAB. The poem thus might best be described as a kind of modified ballad. (The standard rhyme scheme for a ballad is ABCB, and the meter is slightly different, but this one still comes pretty close.)
The poem’s form thus gives the reader some important clues about “My Papa’s Waltz.” The ballad is closely connected to popular music—indeed, many folk songs are written in ballad meter. The poem thus feels very musical. Reading the poem is almost like reading the lyrics of a popular song. This is intentional and important. The speaker of the poem doesn't just want to describe dancing with his father in the kitchen. Instead, he wants his poem to embody the music and the rhythm of their dance—even when that rhythm gets out of whack (hence the frequent variations in the poem's meter).
The poem is, in a sense, the "waltz" that the speaker and his father dance to in the kitchen. This makes the poem more immediate—and, depending on how one reads it, possibly more disturbing. Instead of observing the dynamics of this dance from a distance, readers feel like they're present for it, even participating in it.
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Meter
“My Papa’s Waltz” is written in iambic trimeter. Iambic trimeter has a da-DUM rhythm, with three feet per line. Take the poem’s first line:
The whis- | key on | your breath
The speaker uses this meter because its rhythm is somewhat similar to the rhythm of a waltz. A waltz is a kind of dance. Its rhythm is traditionally in 3/4 time, so each measure of the music has three beats. Similarly, a line of iambic trimeter has three stressed syllables. So reading the poem almost feels like listening to—or dancing—a waltz. Instead of just describing the speaker’s dance with his father, the poem’s meter helps to recreate it—and gives the reader the sense of participating in this dance.
Indeed, the speaker recreates his “waltz” with his father so precisely that even the tensions between father and son are evident in the poem’s meter. Note that the odd lines of the poem tend to be in strong iambic trimeter. But the even lines of the poem sometimes have a feminine ending. In other words, there’s an extra unstressed syllable at the end of these lines. One can hear this in line 2:
Could make | a small | boy dizzy;
The extra unstressed syllable throws off the rhythm of the waltz. The lines are off beat, out of step—just like the speaker’s father, who's drunk and can’t quite manage to keep up with the dance: he keeps falling out of time and missing steps. And as he does so, he hurts his son: as the speaker notes in lines 11-12, every time his father misses a step, the speaker scrapes his ear against a “buckle.”
The poem isn't consistent about this—lines 6 ("Slid from the kitchen shelf;") and 8 (Could not unfrown itself.") are both good lines of iambic trimeter, with no extra syllable, as is line 16 ("Still clinging to your shirt."). Sometimes the father manages to get the rhythm of his waltz right. But generally speaking, the poem alternates between lines of good iambic trimeter like line 1 and off-beat, awkward lines like line 2. The back and forth between these rhythms mimics the “waltz” that the speaker describes between himself and his father, with one partner keeping the beat and the other partner out of step.
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Rhyme Scheme
Each stanza of “My Papa’s Waltz” is rhymed:
ABAB
This is a common rhyme scheme for a ballad. Ballads are closely associated with folk music and traditional songs—indeed, many popular songs are written in ballad meter. Using this rhyme scheme thus helps the speaker make his poem feel like a piece of music: instead of describing a waltz, it is a waltz. But the poem’s rhyme scheme is often a little bit off, a little bit awkward. For instance, the rhyme in lines 2 and 4, “dizzy” and “easy,” is a slant rhyme. The same goes for the rhyme between lines 5 and 7, “pans” and “countenance,” which hardly sounds like a rhyme at all—the two words share some consonance and assonance, but they don’t really line up.
These awkward rhymes capture the tension and danger of the waltz they describe. The speaker’s father is drunk, clumsy, potentially violent. The rhymes mimic the moments when he loses the rhythm, when he misses a step in the waltz—and when, in doing so, he threatens to injure the speaker. (Indeed, the speaker notes that every time his father misses a step, he scrapes his ear painfully against his father’s belt buckle.) The rhyme scheme thus works in a similar way to the poem’s meter. Like the meter, the moments of roughness and failure in its rhyme scheme register the tension and, potentially, the violence in the relationship between father and son.
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“My Papa’s Waltz” Speaker
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“My Papa’s Waltz” describes a tense—potentially violent—moment in the life of a family. The father has come home drunk and dances, roughly, with his son in the kitchen, knocking the pans off the shelves in their kitchen as he does so. The mother watches, powerless to intervene or stop the dance. The speaker of the poem is the son, the child who waltzes with his drunk father.
The tension between father and son—and potentially the violence between them—is thus something that the speaker has experienced himself. And it is something that has stayed with the speaker. The poem is in the past tense: the speaker is describing a memory, from potentially a long time ago. But the speaker can’t shake this memory. The poem thus finds him returning to, and reflecting on, a difficult—even traumatic—moment from his childhood.
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“My Papa’s Waltz” Setting
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“My Papa’s Waltz” is set inside the kitchen of a family’s home. The speaker describes waltzing around this kitchen with his drunk father, then eventually going upstairs for bed. This gives the reader at least a hint about where the family lives—probably in a house, rather than an apartment. But the speaker doesn’t give many other hints. He doesn’t focus on larger details of the environment that surrounds him. So the reader never learns, for instance, whether the family lives in the country or the city.
Instead, the speaker focuses on things that are more immediate, like the smell of his father’s breath, his mother’s expression, or the dirt on his father’s hand. In one sense, this reflects the speaker’s perspective. He is describing what he saw as a child: he thus focuses on things that are close and immediate. On the other hand, it also reflects the tensions between the speaker and his father. Because the speaker is afraid of his father, he narrows his vision, focusing on the things right in front of him—things that threaten to hurt him, emotionally or physically.
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Literary and Historical Context of “My Papa’s Waltz”
Literary Context
Theodore Roethke is widely considered to be one of the most important 20th-century American poets. Alongside contemporaries like John Berryman, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath, he pioneered a new style of writing poetry called confessional poetry. This poetry was "confessional" because it included autobiographical details from the poet's own lives—as if they were making a confession. Roethke was familiar with the radical innovations introduced by modernist poets like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, but his poems just as often get their energy from traditional forms. They describe universal themes and conflicts, but they are often autobiographical, emerging from the particular details of Roethke’s own life.
“My Papa’s Waltz” is a good example of these priorities. It is written in a traditional form—a ballad. But Roethke strategically breaks the form, using breaks in its rhyme scheme and its meter to represent the father’s sloppy dancing. He’s interested in twisting and modifying traditional forms, not in perfectly reproducing them. Furthermore, the poem is usually read autobiographically. Roethke had a famously conflicted relationship with his own father, a relationship marked by tension—with love and hatred mixed together.
The poem thus exemplifies a new set of priorities for American poetry (or, at least, one group of American poets), after the extraordinary innovations of modernism. Less concerned with radical innovation than a poet like Pound or Eliot, Roethke's poetry uses the traditional resources of poetry to register the deep wounds in his own relationship with his father.
Historical Context
“My Papa’s Waltz” was written in the early 1940s and first published in 1942. These were the early years of World War II—a time of enormous conflict and transformation in American society. However, the poem doesn’t engage with its own historical moment. Instead, it looks backward, to the speaker’s childhood.
The poem is often read autobiographically as a description of Roethke’s own childhood in Saginaw, Michigan, where his father and grandfather worked in a greenhouse. (Roethke later described this greenhouse as “my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth.”) His father and grandfather were German immigrants. The poem reflects the hard-scrabble lives of immigrants in the 1910s and '20s. For instance, the father’s hand is “caked hard by dirt”—reflecting the hard, physical work that he does.
For the speaker, this moment in his life is decisive and important: he remembers all its details—the way his father’s breath smelled and the look on his mother’s face. Even during a World War, these details from the past press in on him—so much so, that everything else in the world seems to fall away.
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More “My Papa’s Waltz” Resources
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External Resources
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Theodore Roethke Museum — The website of the Theodore Roethke Museum, with photos, recollections from friends, and recommendations for further study.
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Introduction to Roethke's Collected Poems — The full text of Edward Hirsch's introduction to Roethke's Collected Poems.
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A Tribute to Roethke — Former U.S. Poet Laureate, Stanley Kunitz, reflects on the importance of Roethke's poetry.
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Roethke's Life — A detailed biography of Theodore Roethke from the Poetry Foundation.
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Roethke Recites "My Papa's Waltz" — Listen to the poet read his poem aloud.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Theodore Roethke
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