Theodore Roethke He won a Pulitzer Prize for

Theodore Roethke He won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1953 poetry collection The Waking.

Theodore Roethke (1908– 1963) The Waking. Fate I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.

Roethke, Theodore (1908 -1963) n n His lyrical verse is characterized by its startling imagery, especially of plant life. Roethke spent much of his childhood in and around a greenhouse that belonged to his father and uncle. There he developed a lifelong involvement with all manner of growing things, which became the subject of much of his poetry. Roethke won the 1954 Pultizer Prize for poetry for his collection The Waking: Poems 1933 -1953 (1953).

Roethke n n Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan. Though somewhat disdainful of schooling, he graduated from the University of Michigan and went on to do graduate work in literature at Harvard University. From 1947 until his death, Roethke was a professor of English at the University of Washington. Throughout adulthood, Roethke suffered from both manic depression and alcoholism.

Roethke n n n His first book of poetry, Open House (1941), is composed primarily of short, rhymed lyrics that contain intense images of growth and decay. The book went largely unnoticed by critics. His second work, The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948), showed greater variety in form and content, exploring the emotional experiences of a young man coming of age. Words of the Wind (1958) won both the National Book Award and the Bollingen Prize.

Roethke n n n Roethke’s other volumes of poetry include I Am! Says the Lamb (1961), in which he makes an uncharacteristic foray into light verse, and The Far Field (1964), which was edited by his wife, Beatrice, and published after his death. The Far Field was awarded the 1964 National Book Award for poetry. Roethke's essays and other prose writings are anthologized in On the Poet and His Craft (1965), Selected Letters (1968), and Straw in the Fire (1972). Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke was published in 1966.

selections from I Am! Said the Lamb The Chair A funny thing about a Chair: You hardly ever think it's there. To know a Chair is really it, You sometimes have to go and sit.

various quotes from On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose of Theodore Roethke n n n *The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods. * Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't. * You can't make poetry simply by avoiding clichés. * There's a point where plainness is no longer a virtue, when it becomes excessively bald, wrenched. * You must believe: a poem is a holy thing -- a good poem, that is. From On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose of Theodore Roethke.