Poetry analysis essay

Name : Course Name : Instructor’s Name : Date of Submission : Memory of the past The past memories Parenting is very important in shaping ones future. Children never forget what they have gone through in their lives and therefore parents should taken caution of their action. The poems titled, “My Papa’s Waltz” (1948) by Theodore Roethke, “Photograph of my Father in his Twenty-Second Year” (1983) by Raymond Carver and “The courage that my mother had” (1954) by Edna St. Vincent Millay reflects on the poets' relationships with their parents when they were kids. Reading through them expresses how each of the poets was trying to assess the essential relationships in their own childhood through exploration of the meaning of their interactions with the parents. This paper explains how in each poem a sense of loss or disappointment and a sense of anger is analyzed. The different poets were considering the ways in which his or her father or mother betrayed them. The following is analysis of each of the above mentioned poems. My papa waltz Theodore Roethke is one of the great American contemporary poets. His poem has raised a lot of contrivances as people try to understand his message through the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz”. His main idea was to express to the audience the different moments of affection he underwent as a little boy with his father regardless of the dangers these moments posed to him. His father according to the poetry had different traits which reflect why he behaved differently in different occasions. For instance, the first two lines of the poem, “The whiskey on your breath/ could make a small boy dizzy” signifies how his father was a drunkard and key to his writing. This is also shown in line 11, “At every step you missed”, this speaks to the audience how the father’s state of drunkenness can be hazardous and occurred frequently. Regardless of the state of his father it is very evident that the boy really enjoyed his father’s waltzing. The author approaches his relationship with his father in a very indirect view, trying all his best not show any suggestion of his emotions to the audience. He just explains of how the events took place only. For instance, line twelve of the poem, “My right ear scraped a buckle” shows a kind of child abuse, but the poet does not show any personal emotion to that statement. This signifies to the audience that the boy really enjoyed all occasions he had with him regardless. It is also evident in line 14, “With a palm caked hard by dirt”, the boy did not bother why his father’s hands were dirty but he just stated the exact truth of the situation. The entire impression the poet uses has a lot of impact to the audience development of emotions, feelings and opinions which they cannot clearly state A very crucial line of the poem is line 3, “hung on like death”. Out of this line we cannot establish whether the boy really wanted to dance with his drunken father or not. But is evident that the boy would rather die than let go off his father’s grasp. This argument can be supported fully by the closing lines, 16, “Still clinging to your shirt”. Yes, the dance was dangerous but he instead cherished its memories. Through indirect approach the poet managed to pass over his massage to the readers; child abuse. Regardless of the pains and hard times the boy was experiencing from his father he had no option rather than hung on to him to get what was good from him; love and affection. It is quite evident how a single event in a child life can last for long to his adulthood. Photograph of my father in hid twenty second year "P...