For such a short poem, “My Papa’s Waltz” has a rather complex tone that is at once ironic and bitterly cheeky. Roethke signals the poem’s irony already in the title, which sets the reader up to expect a childlike point of view (“papa”) and perhaps a sense of whimsy (“waltz”). However, the opening lines immediately subvert this expectation. Instead of a wholesome father figure, the speaker introduces us to an inebriated man with whiskey breath so strong it “could make a small boy dizzy” (line 2). Likewise, it quickly becomes clear that the “waltz” of the title is closer to violence than dance: “I hung on like death” (line 3). Yet despite the gap between the “waltz” of the title and the evident domestic abuse of the poem, the speaker uses meter and rhyme to maintain a seemingly upbeat attitude that conveys a bitter cheekiness. It’s important to remember that the speaker is recounting an event that happened in the past. The speaker wields language like a weapon, establishing a sense of control that he didn’t have as a boy. Embittered by a traumatic memory, the speaker nonetheless exhibits a cheeky sense of his power to control how he depicts his father.