My Papa's Waltz

"Youth" by James Wright (1990)

Written by a Pulitzer Prize winning poet who studied under Roethke at the University of Washington and wrote extensively about his debt to Roethke’s poetry, this brief lyric examines the relationship between Wright and his emotionally unavailable father, who like Roethke’s, came from a working-class background and struggled to understand his son’s artistic leaning.

"Daddy" by Sylvia Plath (1965)

This poem is a controversial exploration of Plath’s own difficult relationship with her father. It draws on imagery from the Holocaust to create the feeling of tension and conflict about her father who died when Plath was only eight. The poem, written just months before Plath’s suicide, represents one of the pinnacle achievements of the school of confessional poets that came after Roethke. Indeed, Plath was vocal in her admiration for Roethke, even dedicating an unpublished poem to him.

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden (1966)

Influenced by the groundbreaking confessional poetry of Roethke’s generation, Hayden here offers a finely-chiseled lyric memory of his father struggling one cold Sunday morning to cut wood and make the house warm and inviting, a thankless task for which the poet, looking back, regrets never acknowledging.