The Last Waltz

songs and were given the chance to record an album. Their first single was dropped in 1953 called “These Are They”. The Royal Company was the record label that picked them up and gave them their first break. The following year they released their next single “Sit Down Servant” on United. In 1957 the Staples Singers got signed by Vee-Jay Records. With their song “Uncloudy Days” Mavis’ mature and strong vocals were able to reach national audiences. She was only at the age of fifteen when this song went nation wide and no one could believe it was just a little girl. The band toured nation wide sharing their songs with all groups of people. During this time they recorded two more hit songs: “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “This May Be The Last Time”. Yvonne took Pervis’ place in the group in 1958 because he had to go serve in the military. Stax Records singed the group to their label in 1960 when they switched their sound.(Britannica Academic) When they singed with this label their music really started picking up speed. In 1963, the group really got is stardom because of all the folk and blues revivals. People enjoyed the new sound and started to take notice of the Staples Singers and everything they stood for. In 1963, the group really got is stardom because of all the folk and blues revivals. Their first big concert in Montgomery, Alabama. It just so happens that Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. actually attended this concert. After their concert they got the…

In Theodore Roethke “My Papa’s Waltz” poem, readers will find one of two stories. The story of a hard-working, affectionate father or an abusive one that drinks too much. The interpretation depends solely on the readers’ perspective. The speaker is reflecting on a childhood memory involving his father. The speaker describes a beautiful but dangerous game that he and his father played as a child. Where the father would pick him up, strap him in his boots and dance with him all throughout the…

and good for the soul. We get to visit with our loved ones, who are no longer with us, or those far away. In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” written by Theodore Roethke, the speaker, reminisces back to his childhood with his father. The speaker reflects—through the rhythm, word choice, theme, and tone—on the ritual of the special nightly bedtime waltz that father and son…

Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” is an interesting poem because of the different ways it can be interpreted. While there are many ways readers interpret the poem, the two extremes usually lie between an alcoholic father abusing his son and a loving father playfully rough housing with his son. However, when I read and interpreted the poem for myself, my optimistic tendencies at first lead me to read the poem with the brighter meaning in mind, but as I kept reading my perception of the…

The relationship between the father and son in “My papas waltz” is one that some people in the world can relate to. The son in the poem goes to state, “the whiskey on your breath”, which is referring to the overwhelming smell of alcohol coming off his father. He is intoxicated; furthermore, the father seems quite abusive to the son, especially when he is under the influence (Roethke, 687). However, to the son, it is quite a normal act. Even though what the son is going through is a horrible…

Imagine it, a hardworking father coming home to his son after a long day and playing with him, dancing the night away. On the surface, that is what the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” is about but a closer look at Roethke’s choice of words, the poem’s imagery, emotions, and irony reveals a painful and probably confusing encounter between a boy and his drunken father. The poem shows how some things that are bad can be described as good. Many people believe that Theodore Roethke was the small boy in the…

John Ortiz is a recent a graduate from a highly touted dance academy. In his last semester at the academy, one of his instructors was interested in what had driven her students to find their passion in dance. So to find out she gave an assignment for each student to write a paper on how they fell in love with dance. In John’s case, falling in love with dance seemed as likely as the Cleveland Browns ever winning the Super Bowl. Growing up John was never the most slender kid. He always had a big…

My Papa’s Waltz is a poem written by Theodore Roethke explained the experience he had with his father during his childhood. The poem has a unhidden message of child’s father abused. Roethke used some strong words to describe his father abused. Words like death romped, scraped, frown, palm; just to name a few. The child was abused by his drunken and violent father. First and Foremost, no happy kid with happy childhood will describe his relationship with his father as Roethke did in his poem.…

As I began to read the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke I could not help but to feel mad at the the person with the smell of whiskey on his breath. But halfway through the story I began to notice that some of the words like “waltzing”, “romped” seemed to contradict my negative reading of the poem. There are two contradicting images that are created by the poem and one can see a negative experience or a fun and enjoyable experience depending on the interpretation. But as I read the new…

of the first stanza, and the line goes, “But I hung on like death.” I could imagine that the father might have lifted the boy up and started waltzing, but the boy just hung onto him like death as “death” hangs onto us. The way the father moved was not slow and smooth at all as the second verse indicates, “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf.” The father might have been so drunk that he became so aggressive and moved or “dance” faster than he should have if they were in a ball…