My Papa's Waltz

At the emotional heart of this poem is the complex relationship between a father and a young son. If the predictive model for a son’s emotional evolution is the template of the father, the poem positions the son as a dependent, vulnerable to the expression of the father’s commanding presence and unable to react in any way but fear and need. The boy is too young to rebel but too old to escape into a coaxing fantasy world appropriate to a child, suggested here by the retreat in the last line to his bedroom and, presumably, to the easy escape of sleep.

The child clinging to the father’s shirt during their impromptu dancing in the kitchen suggests the deep dependency of a son on the father’s presence. The poet, writing years afterwards, describes the clinging as strong as “death” (Line 3), an ambiguous simile that disturbs because it creates a dissonance between the father and son. It suggests something sinister about the relationship that the poet recognized only in retrospect. For now, the son feels the father’s power.

The poem emphasizes the father’s commanding physical presence through disembodied bits, such as his large hands caked with dirt and his thumping on the boy’s head.