THEODORE ROETHKE
(1908-1963)
The Sun Is but a Morning Star
Theodore
Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1908. As a child, he spent much time
in the greenhouse owned by his father and uncle. His impressions of the natural
world contained there would later profoundly influence the subjects and imagery
of his verse. Roethke attended the University of Michigan and took a few classes
at Harvard, but was unhappy in school. His first book, Open House (1941), took
ten years to write and was critically acclaimed upon its publication. He went
on to publish sparingly but his reputation grew with each new collection, including
The Waking which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
He admired the writing of such poets as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Blake,
and Wordsworth, as well as Yeats and Dylan Thomas. Stylistically his work ranged
from witty poems in strict meter and regular stanzas to free verse poems full
of mystical and surrealistic imagery. At all times, however, the natural world
in all its mystery, beauty, fierceness, and sensuality, is close by, and the
poems are possessed of an intense lyricism. Roethke had close literary friendships
with fellow poets W. H. Auden, Louise Bogan, Stanley Kunitz, and William Carlos
Williams. He taught at various colleges and universities, including Lafayette,
Pennsylvania State, and Bennington, and worked last at the University of Washington,
where he was mentor to a generation of Northwest poets that included David Wagoner,
Carolyn Kizer, and Richard Hugo. Theodore Roethke died in 1963.
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© E-publisher LiterNet, 14.02.2010
The Sun Is but a Morning Star. Anthology of American Literature. Edited by Albena
Bakratcheva. Varna: LiterNet, 2008-2010