My Papas Waltz By Theodore Roethke

In Theodore Roethke’s poem entitled “My Papa’s Waltz” Roethke sets the scene with a young child with his or her father dancing around the house. In the poem there were words used such as romped and waltzed. Romped may have been used to describe them as to dancing wildly and having fun. While on the other hand waltzed is a bit more graceful and smooth. While I read this poem I took away that the son or daughter was enjoying time with their dad. There are certain lines in the poem that can become a red flag to a reader such as;
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy
But I hung on like death.
Within those three lines a reader can interpret the father drank whiskey excessively for the young child to be able to smell