This week as my poem to analyze, I chose "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke on page 10. This poem, although seems quite simple to read as it looks quite small and straightforward, is actually full of rich character and allows the reader to write an analysis about the small details that pop out to them. So this poem end's up having a lot to it even though it is only four stanzas.
First when looking at the title, you would probably guess that this poem has to do with a father dancing, which is actually quite accurate. When you first read the poem all the way through, it has a certain rhythm to it that makes it sound like the up and downs that go with the steps of dancing. The line breakage allows for this rhythm to happen. Every other line, the last word rhymes. The poem is riddled with different feelings of the father. The narrator is speaking from the point of view that they are the child in the poem. The father seems drunk and and steady, which is how the poem seems to be when you read it...it feels shaky. There is also plenty of enjambment throughout the poem that make it seem awkward in a sense. The last stanza was actually very confusing, I don't know if the dad was beating the child or not...I hope that it is some sort of figurative language. This poem also uses some simile's and metaphor's. Overall, this poem was quite nice, but I loved it's use of language.
First when looking at the title, you would probably guess that this poem has to do with a father dancing, which is actually quite accurate. When you first read the poem all the way through, it has a certain rhythm to it that makes it sound like the up and downs that go with the steps of dancing. The line breakage allows for this rhythm to happen. Every other line, the last word rhymes. The poem is riddled with different feelings of the father. The narrator is speaking from the point of view that they are the child in the poem. The father seems drunk and and steady, which is how the poem seems to be when you read it...it feels shaky. There is also plenty of enjambment throughout the poem that make it seem awkward in a sense. The last stanza was actually very confusing, I don't know if the dad was beating the child or not...I hope that it is some sort of figurative language. This poem also uses some simile's and metaphor's. Overall, this poem was quite nice, but I loved it's use of language.
Chetan, you have some strong observations here of the techniques used in the poem and the effects of these techniques. Make sure that you are not spending too much time introducing - spending the whole first paragraph of a two-paragraph analysis introducing is a bit much. Also, watch your apostrophes: you have apostrophes on a number of words they don't belong on, like "end's," 'simile's," "metaphor's," and "it's."
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