The poem My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke, is a poem about a child being carried to his bed by his father with his mother watching. One of the first things I notice was the use of a rhyme scheme. The last word of every line rhymed with the last word in the line after the next. This gave the poem a kind of rhythm to it, which made me interested in the poem.
The way I saw this poem was that the boy liked his dad carrying him. Though there are words that kind of contradict my interpretation. Death, dizzy, battered, scraped, and beat were all words that had some sort of sinister feel to them. I wonder why Roethke added these words. I also started to wonder if the Waltzing could be a metaphor for something. I just don't quite know what at the moment.
Justin, I think you may be missing the main action of the poem. The child is carried off to bed, but most of the poem is about this waltzing. How do you reconcile the sense that both the boy enjoyed waltzing with his father and all the negative words? What is going on here? Work on developing your analysis further, and look for sound patterns besides rhyme.
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