Theodore Roethke

A detailed Summary of Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke was born on May 25, 1908 in Saginaw, Michigan. He was born to Otto and Helen Huebner Roethke. In 1872 Roethke's father and grandfather emigrated from Germany. This is where Roethke's grandfather and father bought 22 acres of land and started a market garden. After making enough money they bought a greenhouse. In 1906 Roethke's father married Helen Huebner, also a German immigrant. This led to the birth of Theodore. While growing up, Roethke helped his father out in the greenhouse taking care of the flowers. All this working with plants and nature deeply affected Roethke, as we can see in his poetry.

From all this time working with his father, Roethke gets one of his major ideas for writing poetry. One poem we can see this in is "CHILD ON TOP OF A GREENHOUSE (1948)."

"The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,

My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty

The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,

Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight,

A few white clouds all rush eastward,

A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses,

And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting! (1-6)

In 1936, he took on another teaching job at Pennsylvania State. While reading poetry in New York, Roethke was reunited with one of his former students. This is where he fell in love with a librarian, Kitty Stokes. She encouraged him to compile a book of his poems. In 1941 he published the Open House, consisting of forty-seven poems. In 1943 Roethke left Penn State and moved to Bennington, Vermont where he began teaching at Bennington College. In 1945 Roethke had another depression and it forced him again into treatment. That same year he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1947 went back to Penn State to teach and here he compiled his second book The Lost Son. He stayed here for a brief time and then took a job at The University of Washington in Seattle.

In December of 1952 while reading poetry in New York Roethke ran into Beatrice O'Connell, a former Bennington student of his. Within a month they were married. They took a honeymoon to Europe, where he wrote most of his poem that went into his book The Waking. In 1954 Roethke was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this book. Roethke wrote various love poems years after his marriage to his wife. One of these poems is "WISH FOR A YOUNG WIFE"(1965).

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1276
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People

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Theodore Roethke

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