My Papa’s Waltz is written by Theodore Roethke. The theme of this poem is a moment in time that the family is going through. The father and his son are dancing around the house, while the mother is just looking on. There is controversy in this poem as the father does not pay much attention to his son, but his son still loves his father till death. Theodore uses many different poetic tools in this poem including imagery, extended metaphor, metaphor, and simile. Imagery connects with the readers’ senses such as touch, taste, smell, sound and sight. Imagery is also one of the most powerful tools to use. In My Papa’s Waltz, there are four of these senses that are useful. The first sense that is used is touch. The son was standing on his father’s feet as they waltzed around as well as the little boy getting scratched by his father’s belt buckle every time he missed a step or the little boy clinging onto his father’s shirt. The next one is smell and the most obvious, the whiskey that was on his father’s breath. The pans sliding from the kitchen shelf is the sound that the father and son were making while they were dancing. The last one is sight as seeing the father and son uncoordinatedly dancing around the room and the little boy clinging onto his father’s …show more content…
For example, in line 7 and 8 which says, my mother’s countenance, could not unfrown itself. Countenance is an unusual word to use for a facial expression and unfrown is a made up word. The mother is not mentioned anywhere else in the poem which give this special emphasis. It describes her as just sitting there, watching them, and scowling at the same time with the situation, but doing nothing about it. Another diction is in line 5 and 6 which says, we romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf. The way romped is used in this poem makes it seem carefree and does not matter what kind of mess or noise is made from the father and son waltzing