Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year

This is another poem that refers to alcohol. A son is remembering his father through a photograph. What the son remembers is his dad away most of the time fishing and drinking beer. I study my father's embarrassed young man's face ( 2 ). The father must of been embarrassed of his drinking problem, and that is probably what killed him. It seems the son could of been an alcoholic, but realizes he can not hold his liquor, so he chooses not to drink.
And don't even know the places to fish ( 15 ) suggest one of two things. Either the father never took the son fishing, that why he does not know of any places, or that because he is not a alcoholic and spends all day drinking and fishing, therefore he doesn't know of any places. No matter what problems the father had, the son still loved him.

My Papa's Waltz

This poem to me represents a father who has been drinking, and probably abusive to his wife, in the line suggest The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle ( 9-10 ). I think that father was abusing his wife, the son woke up, and the father started dancing with the son. The poem refers that the son does not know any better as the father then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt (15-16). Usually children in abusive homes do not know any better. Children think this is the norm, so regardless of the abusive, the son still loves his father. This is probably the only time the son gets attention from his father, and wants that attention to last even with his father being drunk.