Summary and Paraphrase

Trevor Sherman
ENGL 1023
Dr. Lee
3-6-13
HW #3
“My Papa’s Waltz” The smell of whiskey on her dads breathe made her dizzy, but she still clinched to him like death even though it was not easy. They danced around until the pans on the kitchen cabinet slid off making mom very unhappy to where she could not unfrown her face. She was held by her dad’s hands that was battered on one knuckle, still continuing the unique waltz her ear was scrapped by a buckle on every missed step. She was still clinging to his shirt as they waltzed all the way to bed, while her dad still keeping beat with his dirt caked hands.

“Daddy” In the poem Daddy the narrator talks on how she lived like a foot for thirty years. She also explained in the first stanza how she was poor and white, barely daring to breathe. Her dad died before she had the time to kill him. She prayed for her dad’s soul to be recovered in a town on the coast of Cape God, Massachusetts. Then the narrator speaks about a German tongue in a polish town, and how the town was destroyed by wars that came through their town. She could not talk to her dad because of she was afraid and her tongue stuck in her mouth. The narrator kept proposing that her dad was a German soldier, and that he treated her like she was a Jew in a concentration camp. In the last couple of stanzas the narrator becomes angry at the dad. She notice that she is becoming more and more like him which drove her crazy.