My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother's countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

-Theodore Roethke

Developing a Thesis for a Poetry Paper

I. You Need Two Things:

1) An astute observation

This comes from a solid understanding of the poem. In other words, you’ve read it, figured out the poem’s “story,” unpacked its images, put your finger on the poet’s message and now you are able to explain what is going on.

2) A theory about something that’s happening in the poem or something that the poem achieves.

This is your opinion about how the poem works. This is an act of interpretation. This is when you go beyond summary to present and argue a particular reading of the poem.

II. Some Common Approaches to a Poetry Thesis:

1. The surface and what’s beneath… (What the poem’s really about? Often an essential irony.)

“My Papa’s Waltz” seems to be about a father and son dancing happily in their kitchen; however….

3. “The thing” that makes the poem work. (a central image, an unusual stance…)

The lively tempo of “My Papa’s Waltz” is the element that creates and

emphasizes the tension in the family.

4. An idea that is developed in the poem…

This family snapshot reveals the dysfunction that often lies beneath the surface of a happy family.