Analyzing Apologies in Poetry: Williams and Roethke

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The poem “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams is a note left by the speaker to someone telling them that they ate the plums they were saving for breakfast. We know the speaker wants to be forgiven for eating the plums by the way he uses “forgive” in the last sentence. The way he describes the plums “they were delicious so sweet and so cold,” he is telling of the experience of eating the plums. The speaker is apologizing for eating the plums, but as a consultation he describes how good they were. The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is a story of a father and son and the night they danced around the house. He says “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” tells us that the father has been drinking, “but

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