[Lance Levens]

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.



My Father's Dancing

de/composed from Roethke

Your whiskey-breath smelled strong
Which turned my stomach queasy;
I had to go along
Though that was far from easy.

We stomped around; pans slid
And crashed from the kitchen shelf;
My mother frowned, then hid
And said nothing herself.

Your grip betrayed one knuckle
Bashed out of shape and queer;
Each time you lurched, your buckle
Scraped straight across my ear.

You banged time on my head,
With a fist rough as a boulder,
Then hauled me up to bed
Still hanging off your shoulder.


Father's St. Vitus Dance

-re/de/composed from Roethke arhythmically

The whiskey that was on your breath
Made me feel dizzy;
Nevertheless, I hung on there like death:
This sort of waltz wasn't easy.

As we romped, pans
Would slide off the top shelf;
My mom's countenance
Made one unchanged frown of itself.

The hand holding my wrist
Had a bent knuckle:
Whenever a footstep was missed
My right ear got scraped on a buckle.

You beat the time on top of my head
With one palm's caked dirt,
Then waltzed me straight off to my own bed;
I, meanwhile, clung to your shirt.

[John Whitworth]

This is quite a good teaching tool, isn't it? It demonstrates Roethke's art and shows why art makes the difference, art and artifice, that art is (at least in great part) artifice, and that much of the teaching about poetry in schools has been wrong for forty years, I mean the stuff that says anyone can be a poet just like that.

Mind you I couldn't bear to do such a thing to, say, Larkin.

Seasonally, one could compare the Christmas story in the King James version with the Christmas story in some ghastly modern version, say the New English Bible. It would come up with many of the same points, plus the one about immediate intelligibility not being the most important thing, or even an important thing at all.

[Susan d.S.]

Lance, what was Snodgrass's pedagogical goal with this one? Or may we know?

We should remember the subtitle of the book, "101 Good Poems Gone Wrong" (!)

[Lance Levens]

John and Susan,

John's hit the nail on the head, Susan. This is a strategy to reveal the importance of artifice and I'm using that term to mean conscious, reflective techniques and skills that can be learned form observance of the masters. What say you two about the Roethke rewrites? In the first he tried to keep the meter and in the second he didn't.

[John Whitworth]

Neither of them are any good. The second one is quite pointless, like the 'modernised' Shakespeare we are afflicted with. Well, some of us are.

[Maryann Corbett]

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.

[Janice D. Soderling]

That's already more than anybody wants out of me,

That's what you think! Can't get too much Maryann.

Terrific rundown.

Thx also to Lance.

[Susan d.S.]

Maryann's analysis is excellent. What strikes me about the arhythmical version is how it degenerates into broad comedy: the comedy of romping, pans sliding off a shelf, the hand "having a bent knuckle", "my ear got scraped on a buckle", "you beat the time on the top of my head" with caked dirt, "meanwhile, clung to your shirt"---think Curious George. The changes to the phrases make them sound ludicrous.

But it's in equal meaures (well, not measures) risible because of the ineptitude of the poet, which reaches a kind of climax in the clunking, ungrammatical last two lines:

You beat the time on top of my head
With one palm's caked dirt,
Then waltzed me straight off to my own bed;
I, meanwhile, clung to your shirt.

Yes, they are both terrible, I cannot imagine anyone preferring either of them. I look forward to hearing more about what, exactly, he was doing here.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Perhaps the point is to help the student to understand that plain speech isn't enough "to a poem make". Once they understand content from the everyday speech, the class can go back to the original and better appreciate WHY the poem IS a poem, "This is how plain speech becomes poetry". I hope so anyway. That is the only point in it that I can see. As such it might be a good learning tool.

[RCL]

Adding to the note on "countenance": it's the only three-syllable word in the poem, another way of calling attention to its multiple meanings--a key to the poem's positive attitude toward Papa.

Also lost: the feminine rhymes (only) in stanzas 1 and 3 of the original.

Still hanging from his shirt,
Ralph