Author's Note for Poetry Project

  I don’t really know why I decided to write about dance. I guess it was because I’ve been dancing for so long that it became this huge thing in my life. Like something that I’m really passionate about. Like Alice Abrams said, “Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another.” And because it was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard “something you care about”. Dance is something that I can pour out my feelings into. It’s like writing for me. I can just express myself through dance. I wanted to tell everyone how I felt as a dancer and what I felt when I danced.

  I also had a lot of feelings about dance and what I thought of it after one of my dance teachers talked to my class about why we come to dance and why we take the classes. I realized that I’ve been taking dance lessons practically my whole life and I never stopped to think why I did it. I understood more as my teacher spoke that I’ve always been dancing because it comes natural to me, and because I feel very strongly about it. I’ve come such a long way to get to where I am today. Now I can even express my feeling into a dance, in a small phrase.

  I admit trying to find the right words to describe how I felt was hard. Because I’ve never done anything like this before. But soon as I thought hard and imagined dancing in my head, words started to come to me and before you know it, I had four poems done. And like Martha Graham said, “dance is the hidden language of the soul.” So please, try to see it my way.

My Papa's Waltz: revised entry

My Papa's Waltz
by: Theodore Roethke


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. 


When first reading this poem, half of my class thought that the father in this poem was abusing the son. The other half thought that the father and son were just dancing. I thought that the father and son were just dancing. The author does use some violent language to describe the dancing. This particular use of language might give off the impression that the father is abusive to the son, but I think the violent language symbolizes how hard it was to dance the waltz. 


I can understand why my class thought the father was abusive. Just look at the lines. "...hung on like death", "At every stepped you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle", and "You beat time on my head" gives you an image that shows the father hitting the son. First off, death well sort of hangs on to you...metaphorically. Like you don't stay dead for a few hours and come back alive. Death keep you, well...dead. So I think when the author says "...hung on like death", he meant to say that the son was hanging on to his father tightly so he can keep up with the steps they were dancing together. Also, in the beginning of the poem, it says that the narrator/son is a small boy. So I think that "At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle." means that the son is just small in size and only comes up to his father's waist which is why his ear scraps his father's belt when he misses a step. Lastly, sometimes when I listen to music or when I dance, I make the beat of the music on my leg or on a hard surface. I think that's what the father is doing when the poem says "You beat time on my head". The father could be keeping the beat of the waltz on the son's head. Beat sounds sort of harsh but it could just be a soft tapping also.


To sum things up, I think that the father isn't abusive and it is just the language that indicates that image for some people. 

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. 

In class, we had a huge discussion about this poem. There was a side that thought the father was abusing the child, there was a side that thought the father was just dancing with his son, and then there was a "jury side". I was on the jury side. My group had an argument on weather or not the father was abusive or not, drunk or not. But it all depends on each person's perspective.

    It all started with the first line. We all said that whiskey is strong. But then some said that the father was drunk because it's enough to make a small boy dizzy. Others argued that because the boy is small, even a small amount of alcohol can make him dizzy. Also, some people thought "But I hung on like death" was a scary line. They thought it meant like holding on because the boy was afraid. We also looked up romped. Which means lively play. I thought that because its a lively PLAY, it meant they were playing. And the kitchen could be small which is why the pans were falling of the shelves.
    At first, when I read "battered on one knuckle", I thought it was because the father was repeatedly hitting his son. But it could also be that the father had come home from work and he had injured his hand. "At every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle" also made it seem as if the father was beating the son with his belt if he missed a move. But people argued that a waltz is danced with 2 people. And the father and the son are dancing. And in the beginning, it says "a small boy". The boy may only come up to his father's waist height wise. Also in the beginning, it says "The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy". The father could be a little tipsy and miss a few steps and scrape his son's ear by accident.
    So I think that the father and son were ACTUALLY dancing. There isn't enough evidence showing that the father is drunk enough to show that the father is drunk.

Incident Poem

You know how a
teddy bear is a
kid's favorite thing?

Well IT was my
favorite thing
IT and I were always together
IT was always there for me
comforting me
and making me laugh

But one day
IT
disappeared
I didn't know what
I did
or
what I said

I called IT
and yelled for IT
But IT
never came
IT never heard me
IT wasn't coming back

So I gave up
and I stopped
yelling for IT
and calling for IT
I just stopped

IT had already
disappeared
gone
vanished
just
like
that

The Mona Lisa

I read a poem about the Mona Lisa painting:

Mona Lisa      by:Brenda M. Weber

Behind kaleidoscopic eyes

there's no mystery there that lies

She's the one to see it all

from her position on a wall

We look for something in her smile

We stand to study her awhile

Her face of beauty that we seek

What would she say if she could speak

Is her beauty oh so rare?

Was Mona just a maiden fair?

Is she a mirror image of me?

Is that what I'm supposed to see?

Mona's portrait on the wall

A combination of us all  

There's a touch of someone there

in the beauty of her hair

That hint of prism in her eyes

makes her appear to be so wise

The playful curvature of her lip

On her cheeks can dance a quip

She's a beauty this Mona Lisa

but so is the Leaning Tower of Pisa

What is the mystery there that lies?

Behind kaleidoscopic eyes...

I really liked this poem. It's a little different from the Starry Starry Night. Brenda M. Weber includes more observations of the painting then Anne Sexton did. But I enjoyed this poem a lot. It gives you something to reach out to. Something you can connect to, you know? And the choice of words is really beautiful and it rhymes which makes it even better. The flow, the sound of the words on your tongue kinda makes me think more about this poem and how it could effect me too. How it makes me look more differently at the painting. It makes me think who is this girl? This...Mona Lisa. How did she get involved? What is she hiding behind her smile? Mona Lisa, who are you?

Starry Starry Night

I really liked the poem Starry Starry Night by Anne Sexton. It made me think a lot about how I would want to die and where. Like how I would describe it. In a quick way without any realizing or like a big show with everyone there? The word use in this poem was kind of violent but I think it fit the poem perfectly. After learned about Van Gogh being in a mental asylum, I thought about how his painting and this poem can be related to that situation. The choice of violent words could represent his feelings when he was in the mental asylum. I'd say that the word choice freaked me out just a little but I guess that's the beauty of it. Making people feel all these different emotions.