At first glance, the poem has an appearance of simplicity, giving the reader permission to feel some ease that the poem itself will follow this manner. The actual stanzas themselves are each short, going up to four lines at max and never breaking this pattern. Pattern is what this poem follows, much like part of the title of the poem: waltz. A regular waltz follows a certain structure and has to be followed in order for it to work, a certain circular movement much like what the poem is displaying with the use of repetitive looking stanzas.
This doesn't exactly compliment the actual content of the poem itself as there is chaos ensuing within: the narrator of the poem "hung on like death", the partner in the poem "roamed until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf"; and how every mistake that occurred "The hand that held [his/her] wrist/Was battered on one knuckle". By the end of the poem, some order is returned as the narrator is "waltzed...off to bed", but there's confusion at the end where the narrator is still "clinging" to the shirt of their partner. It leaves an open-ended conclusion of whether the narrator was hanging on because the partner was their father or if it was out of fear. The poem's circular manner of it's form to its content has managed to spin both the reader and the narrator to the point of disorder.
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I could see how the end could pose two viewpoints of the father. I just read a piece in The Sun magazine and the narrator illustrated how his mother was two people to him. One was Mommy and one was "Mommy Dearest"
ReplyDeleteI can see how there is some confusion in the poem and I think that it mainly comes from the terms that they use. You read the word battered and knuckle and it seems bad, but it depends on the context. In this stanza they talk about the father's hands and how they are battered not that he is battering his child. I got really confused reading this poem so I put it down and read it again and took my time with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's a little confusing weather or not the poem was happy or sad. I ultimately think it was both; kind of a bitter sweet reflection from the boy's perspective. In the end though I was mor sad than anythinh, made me a little depressed.
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