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
pain fire bones
Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
heart fire lakes
A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,The burning lake turns into a forest pool,The fire subsides into rings of water,A sunlit silence.
fire desire impulse
What is desire?-- The impulse to make someone else complete? That woman would set sodden straw on fire.
eye longest race running shakes
What shakes the eye but the invisible? Running from God's the longest race of all
happens happy mystery others prisoners shall time
Let others probe the mystery if they can/ Time harried prisoners of shall and will./ The right thing happens to the happy man.
love-is joy torment
Love begets love. This torment is my joy.
roots soul body
God bless the roots! Body and soul are one.
my-own
I came to love, I came into my own.
soul body
The soul has many motions, body one.
heart poet
The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
astonishment perpetual
Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
girl writing boys
In our age, if a boy or girl is untalented, the odds are in favor of their thinking they want to write.
wings light bird
In this place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.
art hysteria defense
Art is our defense against hysteria and death.