Individual words qualify and amplify one another— suggestions clarify other suggestions, and meanings grow upon meanings— and thus how words are put together and where individual words are located matters. Certain words may stand out because they are unusual or used in an unusual way (like unfrown or waltzing in “My Papa’s Waltz”) or because they are given an artificial prominence—through unusual sentence structure, for example, or because the title calls special attention to them. In a poem, as opposed to a prose work, moreover, the number and placement of words in a line and the spacing of the words and lines stays the same in every printed version. Where words come— in a line, in a stanza— and how they are spatially and visually related to other words also helps determine their force and meaning.

The subtlety and force of word choice are sometimes strongly affected by syntax— the way the sentences are put together. When you find unusual syntax or spacing, you can be pretty sure that something there merits special attention. Notice the odd sentence constructions in the second and third stanzas of “My Papa’s Waltz”— the way the speaker talks about the abrasion of buckle on ear in line 12, for example. He does not say that the buckle scraped his ear, but rather “My right ear scraped a buckle.” Reversing the more common expression makes a big difference in the effect created; the speaker avoids placing blame and refuses to specify any unpleasant effect. Had he said that the buckle scraped his ear, we would have to worry about the fragile ear. The syntax channels our feeling and helps control what we think of the “waltz.” In the most curious part of the poem, the second stanza, the silent mother appears, and the syntax on both sides of the semicolon is peculiar. In lines 5– 6, the connection between the romping and the pans falling is stated oddly: “We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf” (emphasis added). The speaker does not say that they knocked down the pans or imply awkwardness, but he does suggest energetic activity and duration. He implies intensity, almost intention— as though the romping would not be complete until the pans fell. And the clause about the mother— odd but effective— makes her position clear. A silent bystander in this male ritual, she doesn’t seem frightened or angry. She seems to be holding a frown, or to have it molded on her face, as though it were part of her own ritual, and perhaps a facet of her stern character as well. The syntax implies that she has to maintain the frown, and the falling of the pans almost seems to be for her benefit. She disapproves, but she remains their audience. (479-80/825-26)