The hard thing is that one can say so much about what's been lost! I'll just do the first two stanzas, and compare the original only with the metrical rewrite.
My Papa's Waltz/My Father's Dancing
We've lost the familiar and affectionate papa, which means we no longer know at the start that the poem is from a child's perspective.
The whiskey on your breath/Your whiskey-breath smelled strong
The only important elements are whiskey and breath; with those, we know all we need to about the smell.
Could make a small boy dizzy;/Which turned my stomach queasy.
Again, we've lost any awareness that this is a child's view, and that doesn't get delivered in the next line either. "Dizzy" has a happy connotation that "queasy" completely lacks.
But I hung on like death:/I had to go along
"hung on like death," with what's gone before, delivers the thrilled/terrified contrast that is the boy's relationship with the father and his faults. "Had to go along" just says the N. was forced--and we still don't know this is a child!
Maybe there are people who'd object, "But isn't it good to lose that 'death/breath' rhyme?" I think this use redeems that rhyme.
The line also illustrates that even a cliche (hung on like death) can be deployed artfully.
Such waltzing was not easy./Though that was far from easy.
The "waltz" element, with its clear note of rhythm, is now completely gone from the poem.
We romped until the pans/We stomped around;pans slid
"Romped" is fun. "Stomped" is just violent. So is "crashed." "Around" is filler.
The spondee of "pans slid" feels as though it doesn't give the two important words room to work. Sometimes I think the little function words we need for meter simply need to be there to give the line air.
Slid from the kitchen shelf;/And crashed from the kitchen shelf
Beautiful illustration of the way one substitution--inverted first foot--works, and another, namely anapestic substitution, feels like an interruption. (Note to self: watch out for those anapests you like so much.)
My mother's countenance/My mother frowned, then hid
"Countenance" has tons of biblical resonance: it's God whom we think of as having a countenance. And the word is resonant just for being unusual. That's all lost.
Could not unfrown itself./And said nothing herself.
"Unfrown itself" calls attention to the visual aspect of the face. The altered version, completely plain, adds a reference to silence that pulls attention away from the visual.
That's already more than anybody wants out of me, but I think it demonstrates what's being lost. Now I'll go find out how Snodgrass classified this rewrite in the book. Editing back: It seems Snodgrass has said very clear things about his aims in the two rewrites, on p. 211, but I'll keep mum until we've had some more comments.
Back again: At the risk of sidetracking us, but on the subject of metrical repetition as part of the artifice in poetry, here's
Amit Majmudar's new blog entry at the Kenyon Review.