Childhood Memories

The poems Bored, by Margaret Atwood, My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke, The Video, by Fleur Adcock, and Fern Hill, by Dylan Thomas all use the similar theme of remembering their childhood. The authors use different tones and rhyme schemes, but the idea of it being about their childhood connects them together.
Atwood's Bored is about the speaker and a male figure, who seems to possibly be her father even though it is never stated. Atwood doesn't rhyme in the poem but the repitition and use of the word "bored" has a big impact on the poem. All the acts that she is performing she describes with the word bored, even if it doesn't fit in the sentence. For example, "Holding the string while he measured, or pounded stakes into the ground for rows and rows of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored) weeded." (lines 3-8) We know the poem is about something in the past because Atwood uses the past tense, like "weeded" or "rained"or "pointed". Even the title of the poem itself is in the past tense. The sense of childhood comes about by the reactions she has about doing these chores. Most kids hate doing work and just want to play and have fun. The tone in the poem is a very agitated one, meaning the speaker does not want to be doing what she is doing at the time. We get this feeling in lines 33-35 where she says, "I could hardly wait to get the hell out of there to anywhere else." At the end of them poem the she describes that now she would know too much, which gives the sense of the male figure being gone and these events aren't going to happen anymore, and her childhood is over.
Roethke's My Papa's Waltz uses rhymes and rhythm to convey his poem. The poem is about a boy, in his childhood, and his father. The rhythm of the poem actually gives the sense of moving like a waltz with every other line rhyming and the line breaks after every four lines. The image of the father in the boy's eyes is not an appealing one. When describing the father the boy says things like, "The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy" (lines1-2), and "you beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt" (lines 13-14). In this poem we get the idea the the childhood of the boy wasn't a very pleasant one. He was taken into this waltz, not overly excited about it, and every bad aspet of his father came out.
Adcock's The Video has a more cometic tone. The poem is broken into a before and after idea. Where the before is while the baby is being born and the after is the feelings of the older sister after the baby is born. This portrayal of childhood hits home for many older sisters. When a new younger sister is born that sense of being the only one and most important person in their parent's life is gone. The reader gets that idea in this poem. "'Move over a bit,' Dad said," gives the idea that Ceri, the older sister, is going to have to make room for her new sister Laura. At the end of the poem we get the feelings of Ceri. "She watched Laura come out, and then, in reverse, she made her go back in," (lines 11-12) gives the reader the idea that Ceri is not too happy about the changes in her childhood and that she is not longer the center of attention.
Thomas' Fern Hill gives the idea of youth and childhood right off the bat in line 1 when he says, "Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs." So right away the reader knows the poem is about youth. We get the idea that the speaker feels he is important in line 6 when he says, "I was prince of the apple towns." The whole poem has the idea of a carefree and golden childhood. At the end of the poem we get the idea that the speaker is now older and remembering his childhood. For example, "And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land," and "Time held me green and dying though I sang in my chains like the sea." (lines 51, 53-54) The speaker gives the idea that he is chained down being old, but still able to "sing," or have his spirit, by remembering the youthfulness and joy of his childhood.
Even though poems can have totally different tones and patterens the same idea can be crossed. Childhood is different for everyone, so the different types of poems portraying it just shows how everyone grows up differently.