Monday, May 25, 2015

Birthday: Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)



It would be hard for me to let Theodore Roethke's birthday pass without offering a poem of his; he has meant so much to me over the years. I have taught "The Waking" to high school students, concentrating on its unusual form (a villanelle). I have found in teaching this and many other poems and lyrics that my students easily became interested in formal and metrical analysis once they were exposed to the basics; they hadn't realize that poetry is not just words you slop down on a page. They knew nothing of technique beyond a crude understanding of rhyme, but we made a lot of progress, to the point where they could scan pop song lyrics with ease.

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.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke

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