The Saginaw Song

Part I of Essay
Here's a poem by a Michigan lad, Theodore Roethke, whose father ran a nursery and greenhouse business in Saginaw. This poem avoids all psycho-babble about love-hate relationships, childhood idealization of the father, family tensions and conflicts, the borderline between pl ....

Part II of Essay
.... line rhymes with every other line. For example, in the first line ‘whiskey on your breath’ rhymes with ‘but I hung on like death’ on the third line. The words breath and death are dominant words that reveal a somber tone, which runs throughout the piece. In the second line, the words ‘dizzy’ and ‘easy’ are paired as sight rhymes. Although the rhyme scheme is entertaining, the late night waltz between father and son is serious. The poem is told by a boy who remembers waltzing with his father. The first stanza reveals that the father has been ....