"My Papas Waltz" Revised

   The poem "My Papa's Waltz" created quite a spark in my class, my group and I debated for quite a bit about the authors purpose for writing the poem. The argument lasted almost the entire period of class, but by the end we still had not reached an agreement about the authors purpose. This was very unsatisfactory for me, so when I got home I looked over the the poem again, and by doing so my opinion about the meaning behind it changed.
   At first, I was sure that the poem was not about abuse, this was the side I was defending. On the other end of the argument was Peter and Anna. They thought that the poem was about how the writer was being beaten, and the waltz was a symbol for abuse rather then an actual moment. The evidence they used to back up their story was the line in the poem "The whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy". Another line they used to back up the poem was "At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle". They inferred that these lines meant that the father was drunk and the boy was being abused as they did the waltz. Being hit by a buckle is a classic symbol for abuse, so the line indicating his ear being scraped by a buckle especially caused Ana and Peter to assume that the poem was about abuse.
   When I first read the poem, I thought of it differently. I thought that Peter and Anna were reading into the poem too much, and maybe it really was just about a simple moment that this boy shared with his father. I tried to show that just because he had whiskey on his breath did not mean he was drunk, and even if he was, it does not necessarily mean he was abusing his child. Also, if the young boy was small, then perhaps when the father slipped his ear bumped against the fathers buckle. Overall, the feeling I got from the poem was not a negative one, I simply thought it was a poem about a moment shared between a father and a son.
   However, when I got home, I took a closer look at the poem and began to understand what Peter and Anna were saying. If you look at the poem, the words that the author chose to use were not ones that sounded particularly cheery. For example "You beat time on my hear/ With a palm caked hard by dirt" and "But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy". When reading the poem again, I realized that it did not sound like a poem about a fun and enjoyable dance, but more about something deeper. Like in the line "We romped until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf". I don't think the waltz would be referred to as a 'romp' or be so forceful that it made the pans slide from the shelves. Usually, poets choose the way they phrase things very carefully, so if the author chose those words it must have been intentional. I began to think that if the poem really was about a light hearted moment, the author would have used a different tone and been more careful with his word choice. And so, my opinion about the poem changed. However, unlike Anna and Peter, I don't think it was about a dance at all, I think that was more of a symbol. I think the poem may have been more about the relationship the boy had with his father, and how he felt there was a certain gruffness to their relationship, a lack of love and affection. But, then again, I could be wrong. Who knows what the poet meant, maybe it was about something totally separate. I guess we'll never really know for sure, its all up for interpertation.