Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke
Theodore Huebner Roethkewas an American poet. He published several volumes of award-winning and critically acclaimed poetry. Roethke is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 May 1908
CountryUnited States of America
And I rejoiced in being what I was.
summer wall dark
What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have........ ....... Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. ~From "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke
life giving-up breathing
And what a congress of stinks!- Roots ripe as old bait, Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich, Leaf mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks, Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.
body
(I measure time by how a body sways.)
weed rose lovely
The indignity of it!- With everything blooming above me, Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses, Whole fields lovely and inviolate,- Me down in the fetor of weeds, Crawling on all fours, Alive, in a slippery grave.
vision lovers longing
All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
giving-up breathing dirt
Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
eye dark light
In a dark time, the eye begins to see / I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
waiting dying longing
So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
nature toads bats
I'm sure I've been a toad, one time or another. With bats, weasels, worms...I rejoice in the kinship. Even the caterpillar I can love, and the various vermin.
crafts
Wake the happy words.
real lines fool
Any fool can take a bad line out of a poem; it takes a real pro to throw out a good line.
teaching rooms suggestions
A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
teaching damage contact
The damage of teaching: the constant contact with the undeveloped.