Poetry analysis

The three following poems, ‘‘My Papa’s Waltz’’ by Theodore Rothke, ‘‘The Back Seat of My Mother’s Car’’ by Julia Copus and ‘‘Hanging Fire’’ by Audre Lorde, are told from a child’s point of view who, nostalgic, remembers and longs for something. We understand that the child telling its story may be now grown up and recalling its childhood memories or is still young and describing its current feelings. ‘‘My Papa’s Waltz’’ is about a man who morosely relives his waltzing with his drunken father as a little boy. ‘‘The Back Seat of My Mother’s Car’’ is about a girl being taken away from her father by her mother and how vividly she remembers the cruel separation. Finally, in ‘‘Hanging Fire’’, a fourteen-year-old girl aches for her mother’s attention and support, as she goes through puberty. The burning and desperate desire for love, and the lack ‘‘quality time’’ spent between parents and their children shine throughout different elements of petry in these three poems.
Firstly, ‘‘My Papa’s Waltz’’ is written with a wistful and bitter tone, as the young boy achingly reminisces his childhood. Words like ‘‘romped’’, ‘‘battered’’ and ‘‘scraped’’ clearly demonstrate a negative connotation and are purposely used by Rothke to suggest that the boy in the piece of poetry is a victim of physical violence. The speaker, the young boy, metaphorically compares waltzing with his alcoholic father to getting beaten by him. A ‘‘waltz’’ is a dance that is performed by a couple who turns round and round on the dance floor, which is comparable to two men turning around each other when fighting in a ring. In the passage ‘‘But I hung on like death: such waltzing was not easy.’’, ‘‘hung on’’ may be interpreted metaphorically or literally; the young boy may be holding on with his life and his pain as he fights with his father or he may actually be holding on to his father’s shirt while they are dancing. We understand that the boy’s father is drunk, as they are ‘‘waltzing’’, when the speaker describes his dizziness because of the smell of whiskey on his father’s breath: ‘‘The whisky on your breath could make a small boy dizzy;’’. The boy also remembers how ‘‘At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle.’’ – this is a metaphor that compares every stumble in the waltz with a real-life faux pas; no father should ever beat his child. The poem ends with ‘‘Still clinging to your shirt.’’, suggesting that despite his father’s violence, he still seeks a form of love as a son and desperately wants affection from him. And this ‘‘waltz’’, the violence and the fighting, represents the only time that the boy gets to spend with his father. Thus, the tone and the metaphors clearly emphasize the boy’s desire for love and the lack of ‘‘quality time’’ spent with his father.
Secondly, ‘‘The Back Seat of My Mother’s Car’’ is written with a melancholic and resentful tone, as a young girl grieves and describes her separation with her father. What’s extremely interesting about this poem’s allure is its mirrored structure that includes constant repetition. Both paragraphs are so similar but so different at the same time. The first paragraph seems to describe the very moment of her rupture with her father and the second paragraph is her memory of the event taking place. We understand that her separation is extremely painful for her as she screams out ‘‘Daddy!’’ and that she obviously didn’t want it to happen: ‘‘I still remember, the noiseless words, the distance, my own hand tingling like an amputation. I was calling to you – Daddy! – as we screeched away into the dusty August air.’’. ‘‘We left before I had time’’ is the most poignant line in the poem. The speaker suggests the feeling of nostalgia and dark sadness towards that childhood memory. The speaker thinks of how she never got the chance to comfort her father or to tell him about how she nearly touched hands with a boy: ‘‘We left before I had time to comfort you, to tell you that we nearly touched hands in that vacuous half-dark.’’. We understand that she longs for her father’s love, because she was taken away from him at a very young age. She desperately yearns for his advice, his presence and his words. This said, the interesting poetic form and the tone both beautifully emphasize the speaker’s great sadness and aching for fatherly love.
Lastly, ‘‘Hanging Fire’’ is written with a very simple vocabulary of a fourteen-year-old girl to introduce a comfortable, but sad, tone. As we read the poem, we get to know the little girl; she is black, she wears braces, she is fourteen years old. Like every child going through puberty, she’s anxious about boys, prom and what the future holds for her. The key passage in this poem, which appears at the end of all three stanzas of the poem in repetition, is: ‘‘...and momma’s in the bedroom with the door closed.’’ It suggests that the little girl feels neglected by her mother and is in a desperate need of her mother’s love and support. The girl also explains that ‘‘Nobody even stops to think about my side of it’’; nobody seems to care about what she is going through, not even her own mother. ‘‘There is nothing I want to do and too much that has to be done’’ suggests that the speaker feels depressed and afraid to grow up because she has no role model. As a growing child, the young girl needs a guide: someone that will help her understand the world. Symbolism plays a huge role in this poem because it is through it that we understand who the little girl is and how she feels. For example, ‘‘my skin has betrayed me’’ states that the little girl is black, but isn’t happy about it. She feels different and most likely isolates herself from society; she’s alone in her pain and has no one to share it with. Image also contributes to understanding the little girl’s feelings; we easily visualize her insecurities and relate to what every fourteen-year-old is going through. Thus, the tone, the symbolism and image greatly take part in demonstrating the little girl’s desperate need for love and moral support from her mother, as well as the lack of any interaction at all with her mother.
To conclude, all three poems revolve around the same thing: a child’s hopeless need for parental love and the cold absence of affection. All three speakers face the same heartbreak but in totally different contexts. The idea of this lack of love is extremely important, because it can happen to anyone. It’s not a question of gender or colour; so many children are victims of bad parenting every day. These poems sensitize the readers and move them immensely. In my opinion, ‘‘The Back Seat of My Mother’s Car’’ best and most powerfully describes this longing for love that occurs in the most atrocious of settings. Copus magically played with the vocabulary and the poem’s form, making every reader’s heart sink at the last line.