Poetry is often created by an author’s need to escape the logical, as well as expressing feelings and other expressions in a tight, condensed manner. Hundreds of poets have impacted society throughout history through phenomenal poetry that, even with dark tones can be emotionally moving.
Theodore Roethke was an innovator, both in subject matter and form, his work impacted generation upon generation, up until his tragic death in 1963. He was born in the Saginaw Valley of central Michigan in 1908, and his poetry springs from almost entirely his early formative experiences in Michigan (Poetry Foundation, 2015).
A vast majority of Roethke’s work expose his sensitivity in capturing the ambiguities of human relationships: his famous poem, ‘My
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Papa’s Waltz’ is an exciting yet terrifying force that scoops the young Roethke up like a whirlwind. Roethke unites two of his more important themes into this – his attempt to understand his relationship with his father and his use of the dance as a metaphor for life itself (BCS, 2015). It was known that Roethke had an extremely complicated relationship with his father, and this poem attempts to understand the meaning of the relationship between them (Shmoop, 2015).
The poem imaginatively re-creates a childhood encounter with his father. It may be read as an uplifting memory of a happy day, however when one engages further into investigating Roethke’s work, a darker perspective of the event emerges (Bachelorandmaster, 2015). Although we cannot identify that this poem is explicitly about his father from just simply reading it, when deeply exploring Roethke’s relationship with his father further, it can be identified that both the poem and relationship are connected in this way. The story conveys both the fathers love for the son and the son’s fear of this overpowering event, a combination which explains why the poem haunted so many of it’s readers (Shmoop, …show more content…
2015). Roethke uses a range of poetic devices throughout this poem, each of which reinforce the meaning; the meter, although it is iambic, sometimes adds an extra feminine syllable at the end of the second or fourth lines, such as “Could make a small boy dizzy” and “Such waltzing was not easy.” The additional foot produces a stumbling effect that adds to the poems description of a clumsy waltz. The diction of the poem also underscores the child’s sense of anxiousness at this experience. The poem may seem humorous at first, with utensils falling in slapstick fashion as the father and child bang around the kitchen, it is clearly not amusing to the child who has to hold on tightly to his father to avoid falling like the pots and pans. Dazed by the whiskey on his father’s breath, he must hang on “like death”. At the end of dance he is still “clinging” to his father’s shirt, not embracing his father’s body with warmth. It is then, as readers we realise that the ‘waltz’ was something to endure, not enjoy. Roethke was undoubtedly a very troubled child, from the death of his father that triggered his filial anxiety initially and the death of his uncle by suicide in that same year, which he noted that these events impacted him deeply and influenced his work (Bio., 2015). He developed a drinking problem as he grew older and, during his time teaching at Michigan State University, he began to suffer from manic depression, which fuelled his poetic impetus (Bio., 2015). In his confessional poem “In a dark time” Roethke describes a passage through a dark time in his life and his emergence from this episode. The journey to and out of the psychic pit described in the poem may be a metaphor for personal tragedy, spiritual emptiness, or, most likely, because it is known that Roethke suffered from periods of psychosis, a poetic attempt to deal with a mental breakdown. The poet insists that a plunge to the bottom of the abyss of psychological disorientation and dislocation of identity is necessary to achieve clarity: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see” (Tripod, 2015). There must be painful struggle, though, before this end is reached. In the first stanza, the poet has glimpses of his personality, but he finds only fragments and pieces, meeting not himself but his shadow, hearing not his voice but his echo. The rhyme of the first stanza (“see” and “tree”) is strong and definite, but the same element of the second stanza (“soul” and “wall”) is only a near rhyme, as is that of the third (“correspondences” and “what he is—”) and fourth (“desire” and “fear”).
These near rhymes reinforce the idea that Roethke is only barely in control of himself and the poem, but the strongly rhyming last couplet of each stanza pulls the poem and the reader away from formlessness. As a final seal on the idea that to endure this kind of psychic torment is to break through into a new kind of reality, the last two lines of the poem, the ones which in each stanza had borne a strong rhyme, themselves yield to near rhyme (“mind” and “wind”). It is as if the poet is telling his readers that they thought they had his poem figured out, but that they do not. To experience fully the reality that the poet is describing, it is necessary to see things in a totally new
way. The imagery of the poem, at first confusing, also reinforces the idea that from apparent paradox and nonsense comes new knowledge. Some of the images embody contradiction, such as the serpent with its double meaning in Western culture. Others lose their paradoxical quality when seen in the terms of the poem’s entire statement. It seems impossible that a “light” could be “dark,” but Roethke means that one must embrace all elements of one’s personality in order to integrate them, even those parts which one does not regard as admirable (“beasts of the hill”) and even if the process is confusing (“Which I is?”). Confusion and disorientation are necessary, Roethke says, for only by asking the question and admitting ignorance can one begin to find new ways of learning. Theodore Roethke’s poems “My Papa’s Waltz” and “In a dark time” ambiguously reflect on his personal experiences of depression and anxiety. In doing this he exposes us as readers to an extremely personal and confrontational side of him. We are able to identify through Roethke’s work the differences in his work as he passed through various stages in his life, which emphasises the whirlwind of emotions that he came to encounter. He uses a range of poetic devices throughout his work that cleverly create an image for readers in their mind to portray his message indefinitely, whilst on the contrary leaving readers questioning different interpretations to the text, which is what made his work so magnificent.
,“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity" as William Wordsworth, the English Romantic poet, stated. Poetry is a way to express vast emotions and feelings in a way which is unique to the poet. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses.
The major themes of the poem reflect the poet's own inner life and his struggle with the loss of his father. Through this complicated and intricate poem the inner feelings of the poet are made manifest through the speaker's tone towards the father. The exchange between father and son represents a magical moment in the speaker's childhood: dancing the waltz with his father. In the second stanza, the poet comments “My mother's countenance / could not unfrown itself (Roethke 7-8).” Here the poet seems to regret the fact that he hoarded his father's time after a long day at work, when his father could have been s...
There is more that reveals what Roethke is trying to say. Roethke writes, “The summer house shaped like a village band stand/–And grandfather’s sinister hovering hand.” (2.3,2.4). Roethke starts again by describing the house and things in it. And once again the reader gets hit with these thoughts. He uses a simile to describe the house as a village bandstand. A house that is alone and one of those places you go to getaway. The more important thing is that he uses a metaphor to say “-And grandfather’s sinister hovering hand.” He remembers that about the house. This is where the reader gets the thought that his grandfather was an abusive man. Roethke remembers that sinister hovering hand right before he was physically hurt. Like he is looking at the house and he is seeing the hand, because he was scarred with these memories.
According to Parini, Jane's death is not the subject of the poem; rather, her death presents an occasion for calling up a certain emotional state in which Roethke's feelings of grief and pity transcend the occasion. Following the standard of elegiac celebration of the vegetation god Adonis reaching back to Bion's Lament for Adonis and Moschus's Lament for Bion, Roethke associates the deceased with elemental aspects of nature--the plant tendrils, the pickerel, the wren--to defuse the pathos of her death. A Romantic poet, Roethke views death as a stage; the plants point to rebirth (138-39). The subject of Roethke's most famous poem (45) becomes the response to Jane's death and his ambivalent emotions at her graveside. Without the associations of earlier elegies, the emotion would surpass the occasion. Roethke mourns not only Jane, whom he knew only slightly, but also the deaths of us all (138-39).
Depending on the experience of the reader, they can either be disturbed by these words or be drawn in closer to the poem. Theodore Roethke loved his father. Not only did he love him, but he idolized him and unfortunately lost him at an early age. This poem is a reflective memorial waltz written in iambic trimeter to honor his father and
Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities; it is solely used to evoke emotive feelings in the reader in which to convey a message or story. This form of literature has a long history dating back thousands of years and is considered a literacy art form as it uses forms and conventions to evoke differentiating interpretations of words, though the use of poetic devices. Devices such as assonance, figurative language, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve a musical and memorable aspect to the poem. Poems are usually written based on the past experiences of the poet and are greatly influenced by the writer’s morals values and beliefs. Poetry regularly demonstrates and emphasises on the
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
In describing the way he receives life's lessons and learned experiences, Theodore Roethke uses repetition of two different sentences and a simple rhyme scheme to help the reader understand his outlook on how to endure life. The two sentences repeated throughout the poem are "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow" and "I learn by going where I have to go" [with slight variation in the latter]. "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow" shows up in stanzas 1, 2, 4, and 6 and figuratively means that Roethke awakens in the morning and learns from the day's experiences. Unlike most people, Roethke does not rush through the day as if he expected another. He lives through the day in a calm and slow manner so that he learns about life without missing anything along the way. At night, he falls asleep content with the day's experiences and awakens the next morning in the same slow manner. When Roethke states "I learn by going where I have to go" in stanzas 1, 3, 5, and 6, he declares that he goes anywhere and everywhere to experience all that he can. He observes rare things throughout his journeys and makes mistakes along the way, but wherever he goes, he locks the experiences in his memory and repeats the cycle. The repetition of the sentences in the poem set a tone of determination and perseverance to enjoy all of life's experiences that come Roethke's way. The emotion portrayed by the sentences is an uplifting feeling because Roethke observes and enjoys even the most trivial aspects of life such as when "the lowly worm climbs up a winding stair." The rhyme scheme initiated by the author follows the rhyme scheme ABA in the first two stanzas, CDA in the third through fifth stanzas, and ABAA in the final stanza. This particular rhyme scheme creates a comfortable flow of overt rhyming. In the first two stanzas, the rhyming is the same (ABA) as Roethke talks about how to experience life by feeling. The rhyme scheme changes in the third through fifth stanzas as the focus in the topic changes to how Roethke epitomizes his "experience by feeling" idea by sharing the specific examples of the worm and the ground. The last stanza returns to an ABAA rhyme scheme much like that of the first two stanzas.
The author somewhat implicates feelings of resentment fused with a loving reliance with his father. For example, the first two lines of the poem read: "The whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy;" (Roethke 668). This excerpt appears to set a dark sort of mood for the entire rest of the poem. By the first two lines, the reader may already see how this man feels about his father's drunkenness. It seems as if Roethke has preceded his poem with this factor in order to demonstrate the resentment that he feels toward his father.
assertion is that Roethke intentionally wrote this poem with just the right balance of positive and
Roethke uses imagery throughout the poem. The poem starts out with describing the speaker, who we find out is a small boy,smelling the whiskey on his father’s breath, which makes him dizzy. Roethke also use imagery in the second stanza, “We romped until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf/ My mother’s countenance/ Could not unfrown itself “(2)
In the late nineteen forties, Theodore Roethke emerged with a poem that has been the source of much debate. "My Papa's Waltz," is an account of a relationship between son and father. Alas, many readers who are exposed to this piece fail to note the love present in the connection of the characters. In an attempt to illuminate the author's true intention several factors must be examined. After several examinations of Roethke's poem as well as learning of his childhood it is evident that this poem does not suggest an abusive environment, but is an appreciative account of the love and playfulness between the characters. Therefore, a successful interpretation of this poem will look beyond the four stanzas and study not only the history of the writing, but the life of the poet.
Theodore Roethke was a famous poet in mid-century America. He was born in Michigan to Helen and Otto Roethke. While growing up his family depended on his father’s greenhouse that the family owned. His father loved to do anything that had to do with the outdoors. He spent many hours of his life working outside planting plants in the greenhouse. Roethke viewed his father as a stern man, who was serious almost all the time. So, when he wrote the poem “My Papa Waltz”, it was probably one of the few memories he had of his father dancing and acting silly. Theodore Roethke used psychoanalytic critism when he wrote “My Papa’s Waltz”, he looked back on an old childhood memory and wrote about it from his adult point of view. Most of Roethke’s poems used themes that contained power and vision. He also liked to emphasize on rhythm throughout his poems. In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” he used an A, B, A, B rhyme scheme. The poem has a rhythm that goes smoothly with their “waltz”. Theodore Roethke uses imagery, symbolism, and metaphor in his poem “My Papa’s Waltz” to show the relationship between a father and son, it also
Theodore Roethke let the interpretation of his poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” up to his readers. Some believe this poem is one of a cheerful relationship between a son and his father. Other individuals are convinced that this poem has a concealed essence of parental harm. In my interpretation of the poem, the imagery, language, symbolism, and tone give me the intuition of great love between father and son.
“Roethke's unique imagery—his vegetative metaphors, dream-like memories of childhood, open fields, stones, trees, and wind—all point to a his belief that humanity has cut itself off from the natural world and needs to recover some sort of new relationship.” (Criticism) As a result of his father’s demand for Roethke to work in the greenhouse, Roethke developed an appreciation for nature at a young age. Later in life, Roethke uses his memories of working in the garden to depict a strong imagery of nature, and its marvelous beauty that is astonishing and sense provoking for the reader. As mentioned, the death of his father; Otto Roethke, left a lasting imprint of pain and heartache that followed him throughout most of his life. Roethke expresses