Theodore Roethke suffered from issues of abandonment and loss, and his lack of self-esteem led him to strive to be accepted by peers which is also presented in his work. When he was 14, his father died of cancer and his uncle committed suicide. The poem My Papa’s Waltz, tells the story of a father-son relationship which can be interpreted in many ways, 2 of them being: he is being playfully waltzed to bed as a young boy, and the other is that this is scenario of abuse.

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.