Theodore Roethke ( /ˈrɛtki/ RET-kee; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking, and he won the annual National Book Award for Poetry twice, in 1959 for Words for the Wind and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field.
Read more about Theodore Roethke: Biography, Critical Responses, Bibliography, Filmography
Famous quotes by theodore roethke:
“Last night you lay a-sleeping? No!
The room was thirty-five below;
The sheets and blankets turned to snow.
MHe’d got in: Dirty Dinky.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)
“Nothing would give up life;
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)
“Do I imagine he no longer trembles
When I come close to him?
He seems no longer to tremble.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)
“But still the delicate slips keep coaxing up water;
The small cells bulge;
One nub of growth
Nudges a sand-crumb loose,”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)
“It was beginning winter,
An in-between time,
The landscape still partly brown:
The bones of weeds kept swinging in the wind,
Above the blue snow.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)