My Papa's Waltz - Battered Knuckles Many people look back on memories with a pleasant perspective. A backpacker may love going to the mountains, but every time that person ventures out they encounter a blizzard. The weather is not always favorable to the backpacker and can cause great inconvenience. However, when the hiker returns to his normal routine, he usually forgets the bad experience to continue loving the mountains and joyfully plan his next adventure. Similarly, Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" is a poem about a man trying to turn a horrible event into something much more pleasant to think about. The speaker seems to remember his childhood and eventually discovers dark memories about his father. The child in the poem finally realizes that childhood was filled with scary nights where he sometimes feared for his life. The speaker has tried for years to believe that he loves his father, but he finally understands what really happened in his childhood home. The speaker of this poem begins by commenting on how much his father drinks. The father ...