Reviews for Theodore Roethke: Selected Peoms

The average rating for Theodore Roethke: Selected Peoms based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-01-25 00:00:00 Shirley Bradford Selected Poems includes poems from six collections by Theodore Roethke, including: Open House , The Lost Son & Other Poems , Praise to the End! , The Waking: Poems: 1933 - 1953 , Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse , The Far Field . In addition, this selection includes Roethke's Poems for Children and excepts from his Notebooks... From Open House (1941)... Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm! The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil; All things unholy, marred by curse, The ugly of the universe. The rough, the wicked, and the wild That keep the spirit undefiled. With these I match my little wit And earn the right to stand or sit, Hope, love, create, or drink and die: These shape the creature that is I. - "Long Live the Weeds" - Hopkins, pg. 4 From The Lost Son & Other Poems (1948)... Under the concrete benches, Hacking at black hairy roots, - Those lewd monkey-tails hanging from drainholes, - Digging into the soft rubble underneath, Webs and weeds, Grubs and snails and sharp sticks, Or yanking tough fern-shapes, Coiled green and thick, like dripping smilax, Tugging all day at perverse life: The indignity of it! - With everything blooming above me, Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses Whole fields lovely and inviolate, - Me down in that fetor of weed, Crawling on all fours, Alive, in a slippery grave. - Weed Puller, pg. 9 From Praise to the End! (1951)... 1 A kitten can Bite with his feet; Papa and Mamma Have more teeth. Sit and play Under the rocker Until the cows All have puppies. His ears haven't time. Sing me a sleep-song, please. A real hurt is soft. Once upon a tree I came across a time, It wasn't even as A ghoulie in a dream. There was a mooly man Who had a rubber hat And funnier than that, - He kept it in a can. What's the time, papa-seed? Everything has been twice. My father is a fish. 2 I sing a small sing, My uncle's away, He's gone for always, I don't care either. I know who's got him, They'll jump on his belly, He won't be an angel, I don't care either. I know her noise. Her neck has kittens. I'll make a hole for her. In the fire. Winkle will yellow I sang. Here eyes went kissing away It was and it wasn't her there I sang I sand all day. 3 I know it's an owl. He's making it darker. Eat where you're at. I'm not a mouse. Some stones are still warm. I like soft paws. Maybe I'm lost, Or asleep. A worm has a mouth. Who keeps me last? Fish me out. Please. God, give me a near. I hear flowers. A ghost can't whistle. I know! I know! Hello happy hands. 4 We went by the river. Water birds went ching. Went ching. Stepped in wet. Over stones. One, his nose had a frog, But he slipped out. I was sad for a fish. Don't hit him on the boat, I said. Look at him puff. He's trying to talk. Papa threw him back. Bullheads have whiskers. And they bite. He watered the roses, His thumb had a rainbow. The stems said, Thank you. Dark came early. That was before. I fell! I fell! The worm has moved away. My tears are tired. Nowhere is out. I saw the cold. Went to visit the wind. Where the birds die. How high is have? I'll be a bite. You be a wink. Sing the snake to sleep. 5 Kisses come back, I said to Papa; He was all whitey bones And skin like paper. God's somewhere else, I said to Mamma. The evening came A long long time. I'm somebody else now. Don't tell my hands. Have I come to always. Not yet. One father is enough. Maybe God has a house. But not here. - Where Knock Is Open Wide, pg. 41-44 From The Waking: Poems: 1933 - 1953 (1953)... The spirit moves, Yet stays: Stirs as a blossom stirs, Still wet from its bud-sheath, Slowly unfolding, Turning in the light with its tendrils; Plays as a minnow plays, Tethered to a limp weed, swinging, Tail around, nosing in and out of the current, Its shadows loose, a watery finger; Moves, like the snail, Still inward, Taking and embracing its surroundings, Never wishing itself away, Unafraid of what it is, A music in a hood, A small thing, Singing. - A Light Breather, pg. 62 From Words for the Wind: The Collected Verse (1958)... I came to a great door, Its lintel overhung With burr, bramble, and thorn; And when its swung, I saw A meadow, lush and green. And there a great beast played, A sportive, aimless one, A shred of bone its horn, And colloped round with fern. It looked at me; it stared. Swaying, I took its gaze; Faltered; rose up again; Rose but to lurch and fall, Hard, on the gritty sill, I lay; I languished there. When I raised myself once more, The great round eyes had gone. The long lush grass lay still; And I wept there, alone. - The Beast, pg. 75 From The Far Field (1964)... In heaven, too, You'd be institutionalized. But that's all right, - If they let you eat and swear With the likes of Blake, And Christopher Smart, And that sweet man, John Clare. - Heard in a Violent Ward, pg. 111 From Poems for Children... The Lamb just says, I AM! He frisks and whisks, He can. He jumps all over. Who Are you? You're jumping too! - The Lamb, pg. 126 From Notebooks... If you can't think, at least sing * * * Dear God, I want it all: the depths and the heights. * * * An intense terrifying man: eating himself up with rage. * * * I practice at walking the void. * * * Why shouldn't I sing to myself? * * * And shall we leap the trees as light as birds? * * * I cursed my being visible. * * * In a deep deep yes. In all. I'm here alone and left. * * * Time has no home in me. * * * Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light * * * Sweet stars, I'll ask a softer question: Moon Attend me to the end. I'm here alone. * * * My face washed in the milk of this morning. * * * Heart, you have no house. * * * I slept with Yes, bu woke to No. * * * The exhausting fight against the inner fatigue, the soul-sickness. * * * To possess or be possessed by one's own identity? * * * The self, the anti-self in dire embrace. * * * The wing-tip of madness for Baudelaire: me, I live in the aviary. * * * A man struggling to find his proper silence. * * * O my poor words, bear with me. * * * My name is numb. * * * I can project myself easier into a flower than a person. * * * Fleeing the heart's blankness, I turned to flowers . . . * * * All reality sleeps here, in the seed, in the stem . . . * * * The two duties are to lament or praise. * * * I would put myself, pit myself against oblivion. * * * My memory, my prison. * * * I am nothing but what I remember. * * * The intolerable sadness that comes when we are aware at last of our own destiny. * * * To be weary of one's own individuality - is that to die? * * * My vision falling like a burning house. * * * All my lights go dark. I fold into black stone. * * * Make the language take really desperate jumps. * * * Remember: our deepest perceptions are a waste if we have no sense of form. * * * Puts his thought in motion - the poet. * * * Honesty: the only tricks of the real artist are technical. * * * I am a poet: I am always hungry. * * * Live in a perpetual great astonishment. * * * Never be ashamed of the strange. * * * Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries. * * * It is well to keep in touch with chaos. * * * I trust all joy. * * * I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words. - pg. 127-143

Review # 2 was written on 2018-01-12 00:00:00 Karen Edgar Michigan native (Saginaw) and compatriot of education, I found myself more intrigued by the life of Roethke than I did his poems (foreword written by Edward Hirsch). Overall, this collection had too many nature poems for my personal liking.