3.3: Roethke's Poems

Theodore Roethke (1908 – 1963)

Theodore Roethke, 1959

Photographer | Imogen Cunningham, Source | Wikipedia, License | Fair Use

Theodore Roethke is one of the most influential poets of the postmodern era. A student of the Modernists, who ultimately outgrew their poetry, Roethke’s world is filled with contrasting images of nature and industry that create a sense of hope that distinguishes him from the Modernists, and a sense of insecurity that seems aptly suited to the middle years of the twentieth century. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and two National Book Awards, Roethke is frequently remembered as a teacher, and the work of his own students often obscured the work of the master. The centenary of Roethke’s birth in 2008, however, brought renewed attention to his poetic career.

Roethke’s earliest works of poetry are restrained and spare, as the last lines of “Cuttings” (1948) demonstrate:

One nub of growth

Nudges a sand-crumb loose,

Pokes through a musty sheath

Its pale tendrilous horn. (5-8)

Even in these short lines, however, Roethke’s gift for the lyric is clearly visible with the repeated opening sounds of “nub” and “nudges” pushing the reader to the end of the poem. At the same time, the sounds and rhythms of Roethke’s poems, with their short lines and broken rhythms, evoke images of constraint and hesitation.

The selection from Roethke included here, “My Papa’s Waltz,” also from 1948, takes us from the world of hothouses into the hot and enclosed houses of American life. Much like the young plants struggling to grow in “Cuttings,” the young boy in “My Papa’s Waltz” struggles to grow in his home environment. Arranged in broken three-quarter time, “My Papa’s Waltz” evokes contrasting images of playful roughhousing and domestic abuse. These contrasting images often lead to heated discussions among readers who are divided by their interpretations of this poem as one of joyous abandon and one of repeated brutality. Just what is the nature of this waltz that the boy and his father engage in, and how can it be wondrous if the mother’s gaze is so disapproving? That Roethke’s poetry invites such disparate responses is both a testament to his craftsmanship and a reaction to his deliberate ambiguity. Like the other postmodern poets in this section, Roethke’s poems reveal the many shadows of modern life.

 

My Papa’s Waltz

1942

 

The whiskey on your breath   

Could make a small boy dizzy;   

But I hung on like death:   

Such waltzing was not easy.

 

We romped until the pans   

Slid from the kitchen shelf;   

My mother’s countenance   

Could not unfrown itself.

 

The hand that held my wrist   

Was battered on one knuckle;   

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

 

You beat time on my head   

With a palm caked hard by dirt,   

Then waltzed me off to bed   

Still clinging to your shirt.

 

 

I Knew a Woman

1954

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,

When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;   

Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:   

The shapes a bright container can contain!

Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,

Or English poets who grew up on Greek

(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

 

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,   

She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;   

She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;   

I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;   

She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,

Coming behind her for her pretty sake

(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

 

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:

Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;

She played it quick, she played it light and loose;   

My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;   

Her several parts could keep a pure repose,   

Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose

(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).

 

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:   

I’m martyr to a motion not my own;

What’s freedom for? To know eternity.

I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.   

But who would count eternity in days?

These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:   

(I measure time by how a body sways).