payment page
Study Tools
Overview
“My Papa’s Waltz” is a poem written by the American poet and essayist Theodore Roethke, first published in his 1948 collection, The Lost Son and Other Poems
. Like a waltz, which is a partner dance performed to music written in triple time, “My Papa’s Waltz” is written in a three-beat meter known as iambic trimeter. This use of triple time gives the poem a swift and even jaunty pace that mimics the quickness of the popular social dance form. Yet beneath this jauntiness lies a disturbing depiction of domestic abuse, as the speaker’s alcoholic father violently “waltzes” him to bed.Read a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of important quotes from “My Papa’s Waltz.”
