Who was Theodore Roethke?
Certainly not one of the few American poets (Whitman, Frost, etc.) embedded in the standard high-school and college curriculum. His eloquent, elegant and fearless verses do not bear the conversational style, urban cadences and laissez-faire structure heard at today’s poetry slams; nor the abstraction of more academic modern poetry. Roethke’s accessible verses are steeped in his vibrant knowledge of the natural world, often evoked as a reflecting pond for the tumultuous inner terrain of the psyche. The poems are formally rigorous, yet spiritually seeking. “Deep in their roots,” Roethke wrote, “all flowers keep the light.” But even those familiar with Roethke’s volumes “The Waking” (honored with a Pulitzer Prize), “Words for the Wind” (a National Book Award winner) and “The Far Field” may know little of the longtime Seattle resident who produced them. A native of Saginaw, Mich., where his father and uncle owned greenhouses, Roethke grew up entranced by plants and animals. A favorite plac
