Event Blog

This past week I was assigned to read three poems and attend an event hosted by Loyola. The poems I read were: “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, “(Untitled)” by Peter Meinke and “The Video” by Fleur Adcock. These poems all have a similar theme as they relate back to the importance of families and the interactions between them in different situations. The event I attended this week, the viewing of the movie: “Waiting for Superman” by Davis Guggenheim, also relates to the poems in regards to families and the interactions between them.

The first poem I read was “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, this poem like the title states takes on the rhythm of that in a waltz. The waltz, being a slow rhythmically dance is portrayed by the style of this poem, it rhymes every other line and has a slow feeling when read out loud, like a waltz does. This poem goes on to describe the dance done by a farther seemingly a worker and a drinker by the descriptions given by the author and the son who I believe to be the narrator. The son describes the dance between his father and himself to his own bed describing the relationship they had between farther and son, their family.

The second poem I read was by Peter Meinke, which is untitled. This poem doesn’t seem to have a rhyme scheme but every few lines rhyme like “fair” and “hair”. The poems confusing rhyme scheme I feel like relates to the poem itself as it is confusing and seems to deal a lot with regret and remorse. It seems as though the narrator who is the farther of the ten-year-old boy, Peter, is very upset and regrets a lot about how he raised his child and wants to be forgiven by it which is why he addresses the poem for life so that one day he hopes his son will understand. This relates to the importance of love in a family and how influential it can be on someone’s life.

“The Video” by Fleur Adcock is a free verse poem that also relates to family and there interactions, this one with a negative tone though. This poem describes the character Ceri, and her jealousy towards her younger sisters birth, by rewinding a video putting her back into the body, taking her out of this life. This shows the interaction of the family with a rivalry between siblings. The interactions here show that although she does love her as a sister she is just jealous because Ceri is getting less attention and she wants to change that, as shown by her rewinding the tape.

The event I attended this week was the viewing of “Waiting for Superman” a documentary based on the American public school system in poorer places. The documentary mainly focused on a few students and there dreams that are being destroyed by teachers that are not willing to work hard and go out of there way to make sure the kids get as good of an education as possible. One scene I remember vividly was when one of the mothers from Harlem, Nakia, was being interviewed and she described how that no matter how many jobs she needs to have she will get enough money to put her daughter through college. This epitomizes the common theme running through all the poems of families and how there interactions affect one another normally for the better.

The readings and events this week all touched on the same common theme of families and their interactions about how they affect one another, from love to jealousy to remorse and regret, but in the end it is obvious and clear that love is the defining factor out of all of them. No matter what situation is ,these pieces of art all show that family strength and the love you get out of it is greater than anything else.