Critical Commentary (week 1)

This weeks commentary I decided to continue on with the conversation we had of My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke. To be honest, over the last few creative writing classes I've took I hadn't had much experience with form and so I focused more on generating a lot of imagery and ideas but not much else and then just tried to improv line breaks and such without paying attention to the syllable count and the meter. Surprisingly though, I took a strong interest when we look at this poem mainly because the many different ways we counted syllables during class that day. It maybe me realize the power of substitutions and how people can look at a whole line differently and break it down. When I looked at this poem with a different line I started to get a better understand of how iambs work and how they add substance to words. Something as simple as a word stressed can bring a change to an entire line's meaning and I think that with further study of more pieces, It'll help me build a toolbox of forms to play around with.