Theodore Huebner Roethke ( ; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the
Pulitzer Prize for poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...
in 1954 for his book ''
The Waking "The Waking" is a poem written by Theodore Roethke in 1953 in the form of a villanelle. It comments on the unknowable with a contemplative tone. It also has been interpreted as comparing life to waking and death to sleeping.National Book Award for Poetry on two occasions: in 1959 for ''Words for the Wind'',"National Book Awards – 1959"
National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...
. With acceptance speech by Poetry award panelist
Daniel G. Hoffman
Daniel Gerard Hoffman (April 3, 1923 – March 30, 2013) was an American poet, essayist, and academic. He was appointed the twenty-second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1973.
Early life and education
Hoffman w ...
and essay by Scott Challener from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog. Retrieved 2012-03-02. and posthumously in 1965 for '' The Far Field''."National Book Awards – 1965" National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-02. His work was characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natural
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...
ry.
Roethke was praised by former U.S. Poet Laureate and author
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 January 19, 1997) was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth United States Poet Laureate in 1966. He also received the Order of the South award.
Dickey is best known for his n ...
as "in my opinion the greatest poet this country has yet produced." He was also a respected poetry teacher, and taught at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...
for fifteen years. His students from that period won two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and two others were nominated for the award. "He was probably the best poetry-writing teacher ever," said poet
Richard Hugo
Richard Hugo (December 21, 1923 – October 22, 1982), born Richard Franklin Hogan, was an American poet. Although some critics regard Hugo as primarily a regionalist, his work resonates broadly across place and time. A portion of Hugo's work re ...
, who studied under Roethke.
Biography
Roethke was born in
Saginaw, Michigan
Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greate ...
, and grew up on the west side of the Saginaw River. His father, Otto, was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
immigrant, a market-gardener who owned a large local 25-
acre
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...
greenhouse
A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown.These ...
, along with his brother (Theodore's uncle). Much of Theodore's childhood was spent in this greenhouse, as reflected by the use of natural images in his poetry. In early 1923 when Roethke was 14 years old, his uncle committed suicide and his father died of cancer. Roethke noted that these events affected him deeply and influenced his work.
Roethke attended the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
magna cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
'' and
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
in 1929. He continued on at Michigan to receive an
M.A.
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
in English in 1936. He briefly attended the
University of Michigan School of Law
The University of Michigan Law School (Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of Comparative Law (MCL ...
before resuming his graduate studies at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, where he studied under the poet Robert Hillyer. Abandoning graduate study because of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, he taught English at several universities, including
Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It ...
,
Lafayette College
Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 1832. The founders voted to name the college after General Laf ...
,
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State becam ...
, and
Bennington College
Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...
.
In 1940, he was expelled from his position at Lafayette and he returned to Michigan. Prior to his return, he had an affair with established poet and critic Louise Bogan, one of his strongest early supporters. While teaching at
Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It ...
manic depression
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
, which fueled his poetic impetus. His last teaching position was at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...
, leading to an association with the poets of the American Northwest.
Some of his best known students included James Wright,
Carolyn Kizer
Carolyn Ashley Kizer (December 10, 1925 – October 9, 2014) was an American poet of the Pacific Northwest whose works reflect her feminism. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985.
According to an article at the Center for the Study of the Pacific ...
Jack Gilbert
Jack Gilbert (February 18, 1925 – November 13, 2012) was an American poet. Gilbert was acquainted with Jack Spicer and Allen Ginsberg, both prominent figureheads of the Beat Movement, but is not considered a Beat Poet; he described himself as ...
,
Richard Hugo
Richard Hugo (December 21, 1923 – October 22, 1982), born Richard Franklin Hogan, was an American poet. Although some critics regard Hugo as primarily a regionalist, his work resonates broadly across place and time. A portion of Hugo's work re ...
, and David Wagoner. The highly introspective nature of Roethke's work greatly influenced the poet
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, '' Th ...
. So influential was Roethke's poetry on Plath's mature poetry that when she submitted "Poem for a Birthday" to ''Poetry'' magazine, it was turned down because it displayed "too imposing a debt to Roethke."
In 1952, Roethke received a
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
grant to "expand on his knowledge of philosophy and theology", and spent most of his time from June 1952 to September 1953 reading primarily existential works. Among the philosophers and theologians he read were Sören Kierkegaard,
Evelyn Underhill
Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941) was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism. Her best-known is ''Mysticism'', published ...
,
Meister Eckhart
Eckhart von Hochheim ( – ), commonly known as Meister Eckhart, Master Eckhartmania
Mania, also known as manic syndrome, is a mental and behavioral disorder defined as a state of abnormally elevated arousal, affect, and energy level, or "a state of heightened overall activation with enhanced affective expression together wi ...
and depression, yet she remained dedicated to him and his work. She ensured the posthumous publication of his final volume of poetry, ''The Far Field'', as well as a book of his collected children's verse, ''Dirty Dinky and Other Creatures'', in 1973. From 1955 to 1956 he spent one year in Italy on a scholarship of the
U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission
The U.S.- Italy Fulbright Commission is a bi-national, non-profit organization promoting opportunities for study, research, and teaching in Italy and the United States through competitive, merit-based grants. Since 1948, the commission acts as exe ...
.
In 1961, "The Return" was featured on George Abbe's album ''Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry'' on
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.
History
The Folkways Records & Service ...
. The following year, Roethke released his own album on the label entitled, ''Words for the Wind: Poems of Theodore Roethke''.
In 1961, Roethke was chosen as one of 50 outstanding Americans of meritorious performance in the fields of endeavor, to be honored as a Guest of Honor to the first annual Banquet of the Golden Plate in Monterey, California. Honor was awarded by vote of the National Panel of Distinguished Americans of the
Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...
.
He suffered a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
in his friend S. Rasnics' swimming pool in 1963 and died on
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Bainbridge Island is a city and island in Kitsap County, Washington. It is located in Puget Sound. The population was 23,025 at the 2010 census and an estimated 25,298 in 2019, making Bainbridge Island the second largest city in Kitsap County. ...
, aged 55. The pool was later filled in and is now a zen rock garden, which can be viewed by the public at the
Bloedel Reserve
The Bloedel Reserve is a forest garden on Bainbridge Island, Washington, United States. It was created by Virginia and Prentice Bloedel, the vice-chairman of the lumber company MacMillan Bloedel Limited, under the influence of the conservation ...
, a 150-acre (60 hectare) former private estate. There is no marker to indicate that the rock garden was the site of Roethke's death.
Commemoration
There is a sign that commemorates his boyhood home and burial in Saginaw, Michigan. The historical marker notes in part:
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) wrote of his poetry: The greenhouse "is my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth." Roethke drew inspiration from his childhood experiences of working in his family's Saginaw floral company. Beginning in 1941 with ''Open House'', the distinguished poet and teacher published extensively, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and two
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
s among an array of honors. In 1959 Pennsylvania University awarded him the Bollingen Prize. Roethke taught at Michigan State College, (present-day Michigan State University) and at colleges in Pennsylvania and Vermont, before joining the faculty of the University of Washington at Seattle in 1947. Roethke died in Washington in 1963. His remains are interred in Saginaw's Oakwood Cemetery.
The Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation maintains his birthplace at 1805 Gratiot in Saginaw as a museum.
Roethke Auditorium (Kane Hall 130) at the University of Washington is named in his honor.
In 1995, the
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
alley between Seventh and Eighth Avenues N.E. running from N.E. 45th Street to N.E. 47th Street was named Roethke Mews in his honor. It adjoins the Blue Moon Tavern, one of Roethke's haunts.
In 2016, the Theodore Roethke Home museum announced their "quest to find as many as possible of the 1,000 hand-numbered copies of ..Roethke's debut collection, ''Open House,'' to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the work's publication."
Critical responses
Two-time US Poet Laureate
Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 29, 1905May 14, 2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.
Biography
Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massach ...
said of Roethke, "The poet of my generation who meant most to me, in his person and in his art, was Theodore Roethke."
In a Spring 1976 interview in the ''
Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Ph ...
'' (No. 65),
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 January 19, 1997) was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth United States Poet Laureate in 1966. He also received the Order of the South award.
Dickey is best known for his n ...
defended his choice of Roethke as the greatest of all American poets. Dickey states: "I don't see anyone else that has the kind of deep, gut vitality that Roethke's got. Whitman was a great poet, but he's no competition for Roethke."
In his book ''The Western Canon; The Books and School of the Age,'' (1994) Yale literary critic
Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...
cites two Roethke books, ''Collected Poems'' and ''Straw for The Fire,'' on his list of essential writers and books. Bloom also groups Roethke with Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Penn Warren as the most accomplished among the "middle generation" of American poets.
In her 2006 book, "Break, Blow, Burn: Forty-three of the World's Best Poems," critic
Camille Paglia
Camille Anna Paglia (; born April 2, 1947) is an American feminist academic and social critic. Paglia has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1984. She is critical of many aspects of modern cultu ...
includes three Roethke poems, more than any other 20th-century writer cited in the book.
The Poetry Foundation entry on Roethke notes early reviews of his work and Roethke's response to that early criticism:
W. H. Auden called oethke's first book''Open House'' "completely successful." In another review of the book, Elizabeth Drew felt "his poems have a controlled grace of movement and his images the utmost precision; while in the expression of a kind of gnomic wisdom which is peculiar to him as he attains an austerity of contemplation and a pared, spare strictness of language very unusual in poets of today." Roethke kept both Auden's and Drew's reviews, along with other favorable reactions to his work. As he remained sensitive to how peers and others he respected should view his poetry, so too did he remain sensitive to his introspective drives as the source of his creativity. Understandably, critics picked up on the self as the predominant preoccupation in Roethke's poems.
Roethke's breakthrough book, ''The Lost Son and Other Poems'', also won him considerable praise. For instance, Michael Harrington felt Roethke "found his own voice and central themes in The Lost Son" and
Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 29, 1905May 14, 2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.
Biography
Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massach ...
saw a "confirmation that he was in full possession of his art and of his vision." In ''Against Oblivion'', an examination of forty-five twentieth century poets, the critic Ian Hamilton also praised this book, writing, "In Roethke's second book, ''The Lost Son'', there are several of these greenhouse poems and they are among the best things he wrote; convincing and exact, and rich in loamy detail." Michael O'Sullivan points to the phrase "uncertain congress of stinks", from the greenhouse poem "
Root Cellar
A root cellar (American English), fruit cellar (Mid-Western American English) or earth cellar (British English) is a structure, usually underground. or partially underground, used for storage of vegetables, fruits, nuts, or other foods. Its n ...
", as Roethke's insistence on the ambiguous processes of the animal and vegetable world, processes that cannot be reduced to growth and decay alone.
In addition to the well-known greenhouse poems, the Poetry Foundation notes that Roethke also won praise "for his love poems which first appeared in ''The Waking'' and earned their own section in the new book and 'were a distinct departure from the painful excavations of the monologues and in some respects a return to the strict stanzaic forms of the earliest work,' ccording to the poetStanley Kunitz. he criticRalph Mills described 'the amatory verse' as a blend of 'consideration of self with qualities of eroticism and sensuality; but more important, the poems introduce and maintain a fascination with something beyond the self, that is, with the figure of the other, or the beloved woman.'"
In reviewing his posthumously published ''Collected Poems'' in 1966, Karl Malkoff of ''
The Sewanee Review
''The Sewanee Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1892. It is the oldest continuously published quarterly in the United States. It publishes original fiction and poetry, essays, reviews, and literary criticism.
History
''T ...
'' wrote:
Though not definitive, ''Roethke: Collected Poems'' is a major book of poetry. It reveals the full extent of Roethke's achievement: his ability to perceive reality in terms of the tensions between inner and outer worlds, and to find a meaningful system of metaphor with which to communicate this perception.... It also points up his weaknesses: the derivative quality of his less successful verse, the limited areas of concern in even his best poems. The balance, it seems to me, is in Roethke's favor.... He is one of our finest poets, a human poet in a world that threatens to turn man into an object.
In 1967 Roethke's ''Collected Poems'' topped the lists of two of the three Pulitzer Prize poetry voters; Phyllis McGinley and
Louis Simpson
Louis Aston Marantz Simpson (March 27, 1923 – September 14, 2012) was an American poet born in Jamaica. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work ''At the End of the Open Road''.
Life and career
Simpson was born in Jamaica, the so ...
. However the group's chairman,
Richard Eberhart
Richard Ghormley Eberhart (April 5, 1904 – June 9, 2005) was an American poet who published more than a dozen books of poetry and approximately twenty works in total. "Richard Eberhart emerged out of the 1930s as a modern stylist with romant ...
, lobbied against Roethke on the grounds that the award should go to a living poet. It would have been Roethke's second Pulitzer Prize.
Bibliography
* '' Open House'' (1941)
* ''The Lost Son and Other Poems'' (1948)
* ''Praise to the End!'' (1951)
* ''
The Waking "The Waking" is a poem written by Theodore Roethke in 1953 in the form of a villanelle. It comments on the unknowable with a contemplative tone. It also has been interpreted as comparing life to waking and death to sleeping.Words For The Wind'' (1958)
* ''I Am! Says The Lamb'' (1961)
* ''Sequence, Sometimes Metaphysical'' (1963)
* ''Party at the Zoo'' (1963) (A Modern Masters Book for Children, illustrated by Al Swiller)
* '' The Far Field'' (1964)
* ''Dirty Dinky and Other Creatures: Poems for Children'' (1973)
* ''On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose and Craft of Theodore Roethke'' (2001)
* ''Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63'' (1972; 2006) (selected and arranged by David Wagoner)
Film and theatre
Film
* ''In a Dark Time: A Film About Theodore Roethke'' (1964). Directed by Dan Myers for McGraw-Hill Films. 25:38 min.
* I Remember Theodore Roethke ' (2005). Produced and edited by Jean Walkinshaw. SCCtv ( Seattle Community Colleges Television). 30 min.
Theatre
*''First Class'': A Play About Theodore Roethke (2007). Written by David Wagoner.
References
Sources
Seager, Allan. ''The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke'', New York, McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Southworth, James G., "The Poetry of Theodore Roethke", ''College English'' (Vol. 21, No. 6) March 1960, pp. 326–330, 335–338.