Misplaced Pages

#454545

43-527: Roethke was praised by former U.S. Poet Laureate and author James Dickey as "in my opinion the greatest poet this country has yet produced." He was also a respected poetry teacher, and taught at the University of Washington for fifteen years. His students from that period won two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and two others were nominated for the award. "He was probably the best poetry-writing teacher ever," said poet Richard Hugo , who studied under Roethke. Roethke

86-455: A National Book Award for Poetry . Among his better-known poems are "The Performance", " Cherrylog Road ", "The Firebombing", "May Day Sermon", "Falling", and "For The Last Wolverine". He published his first volume of collected poems, Poems 1957-1967 in 1967 after being named a poetry consultant for the Library of Congress . This publication represents Dickey's best-known poetry. After serving as

129-572: A former student. Roethke was a heavy drinker and susceptible to bouts of mental illness, something not uncommon among American poets of his generation. He did not initially inform O'Connell of his repeated episodes of mania and depression , yet she remained dedicated to him and his work. She ensured the posthumous publication of his final volume of poetry, The Far Field , as well as a book of his collected children's verse, Dirty Dinky and Other Creatures , in 1973. From 1955 to 1956 he spent one year in Italy on

172-550: A position he held for the remainder of his life. It was there that he was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa , the National Leadership Honor Society, in 1970. Dickey wrote the poem The Moon Ground for Life magazine in celebration of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. His reading of it was broadcast on ABC television on July 20, 1969. His popularity exploded after the film version of his novel Deliverance

215-505: A postgraduate year at Darlington School in Rome, Georgia. Dickey asked to be dismissed from the Darlington rolls in a 1941 letter to the principal, deeming the school the most "disgusting combination of cant, hypocrisy, cruelty, class privilege and inanity I have ever since encountered at any human institution." In 1942, he enrolled at Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina and played on

258-593: A pull-out leaflet containing extensive liner notes . The Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, D.C. acquired Asch's Folkways recordings and business files after his death in 1986. This acquisition was initiated by Ralph Rinzler of the Smithsonian before Asch's death and completed by the Asch Family to ensure that the sounds and artists would be preserved for future generations. As

301-498: A result, it was agreed to continue Asch's policy that all of the 2,168 titles would stay in print indefinitely regardless of market sales. The Smithsonian Folkways website uses the internet to make the recordings available as streaming samples, DRM -free digital downloads in MP3 and lossless FLAC format, and on CDs via mail order. A complete set of the Folkways recordings was also donated to

344-565: A return to the strict stanzaic forms of the earliest work,' [according to the poet] Stanley Kunitz. [The critic] Ralph Mills described 'the amatory verse' as a blend of 'consideration of self with qualities of eroticism and sensuality; but more important, the poems introduce and maintain a fascination with something beyond the self, that is, with the figure of the other, or the beloved woman.'" In reviewing his posthumously published Collected Poems in 1966, Karl Malkoff of The Sewanee Review wrote: Though not definitive, Roethke: Collected Poems

387-454: A scholarship of the U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission . In 1961, "The Return" was featured on George Abbe's album Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry on Folkways Records . The following year, Roethke released his own album on the label entitled, Words for the Wind: Poems of Theodore Roethke . In 1961, Roethke was chosen as one of 50 outstanding Americans of meritorious performance in

430-532: A visiting lecturer at several institutions from 1963 to 1968 (including Reed College , California State University, Northridge , the University of Wisconsin–Madison , the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee , Washington University in St. Louis and the Georgia Institute of Technology ), Dickey returned to academia in earnest in 1969 as a professor of English and writer-in-residence at the University of South Carolina ,

473-644: A womb, a heaven-on-earth." Roethke drew inspiration from his childhood experiences of working in his family's Saginaw floral company. Beginning in 1941 with Open House , the distinguished poet and teacher published extensively, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and two National Book Awards among an array of honors. In 1959 Pennsylvania University awarded him the Bollingen Prize. Roethke taught at Michigan State College, (present-day Michigan State University) and at colleges in Pennsylvania and Vermont, before joining

SECTION 10

#1732890587455

516-427: Is a major book of poetry. It reveals the full extent of Roethke's achievement: his ability to perceive reality in terms of the tensions between inner and outer worlds, and to find a meaningful system of metaphor with which to communicate this perception.... It also points up his weaknesses: the derivative quality of his less successful verse, the limited areas of concern in even his best poems. The balance, it seems to me,

559-841: Is in Roethke's favor.... He is one of our finest poets, a human poet in a world that threatens to turn man into an object. In 1967 Roethke's Collected Poems topped the lists of two of the three Pulitzer Prize poetry voters; Phyllis McGinley and Louis Simpson . However the group's chairman, Richard Eberhart , lobbied against Roethke on the grounds that the award should go to a living poet; it would have been Roethke's second Pulitzer Prize. Film Theatre Seager, Allan. The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke , New York, McGraw-Hill, 1968. Southworth, James G., "The Poetry of Theodore Roethke", College English (Vol. 21, No. 6) March 1960, pp. 326–330, 335–338. James Dickey James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 – January 19, 1997)

602-585: The New Lost City Ramblers . The Anthology of American Folk Music appeared on Folkways, as did the accompanying album to The Country Blues by Samuel Charters . Folkways was one of the earliest companies to release albums of world music , including the Music of the World's Peoples collection edited by Henry Cowell . It also released many spoken word albums, and other unusual repertoire. The albums came with

645-722: The U.S. Air Force during the Korean War . Between the wars, he attended Vanderbilt University , where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English and philosophy (as well as minoring in astronomy) in 1949. He also received an M.A. in English from Vanderbilt in 1950. Dickey taught as an instructor of English at Rice University (then Rice Institute) in Houston, Texas in 1950 and following his second Air Force stint, from 1952 to 1954, Dickey returned to academic teaching. Dickey then quit his teaching job at

688-485: The University of Alberta where Michael Asch, Moses Asch's son, was an anthropology professor. FolkwaysAlive , a joint initiative between the university and the Smithsonian founded in 2004 by Regula Qureshi and Michael Frishkopf, with support from VP Research Gary Kachanoski, is involved in digitization and archiving of the collection as well as maintaining a research center and sponsoring student research scholarships and an annual concert series. Since acquiring Folkways,

731-580: The University of Florida in the spring of 1956 after a group of the American Pen's Women's Society protested his reading of the poem called The Father's Body ; he quit rather than apologize. This incident some critics believe he manipulated to his advantage, he became a successful copy writer for advertising agencies selling Coca-Cola and Lay's potato chips while in his free time writing some of his best poetry. He once said he embarked on his advertising career in order to "make some bucks." Dickey also said "I

774-635: The University of Michigan , earning a B.A. magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1929. He continued on at Michigan to receive an M.A. in English in 1936. He briefly attended the University of Michigan School of Law before resuming his graduate studies at Harvard University , where he studied under the poet Robert Hillyer . Abandoning graduate study because of the Great Depression , he taught English at several universities, including Michigan State University , Lafayette College , Pennsylvania State University , and Bennington College . In 1940, he

817-622: The Middle East for Newsweek . In 1998, Christopher wrote a book about his father and Christopher's own sometimes troubled relationship with him, titled Summer of Deliverance . Christopher died in July 2020. Kevin Dickey is an interventional radiologist and lives in Winston-Salem, NC . Two months after Maxine died in 1976, Dickey married one of his students, Deborah Dodson. Their daughter, Bronwen ,

860-461: The Smithsonian has expanded Asch's collection by adding several other record labels, including Cook , Monitor , Fast Folk , Dyer-Bennet , and Paredon Records . They have released over 300 new recordings. Smithsonian Folkways states that their mission "is the legacy of Moses Asch, who founded Folkways Records in 1948 to document 'people's music.'" They "are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among peoples through

903-511: The animal and vegetable world, processes that cannot be reduced to growth and decay alone. In addition to the well-known greenhouse poems, the Poetry Foundation notes that Roethke also won praise "for his love poems which first appeared in The Waking and earned their own section in the new book and 'were a distinct departure from the painful excavations of the monologues and in some respects

SECTION 20

#1732890587455

946-552: The book, Elizabeth Drew felt "his poems have a controlled grace of movement and his images the utmost precision; while in the expression of a kind of gnomic wisdom which is peculiar to him as he attains an austerity of contemplation and a pared, spare strictness of language very unusual in poets of today." Roethke kept both Auden's and Drew's reviews, along with other favorable reactions to his work. As he remained sensitive to how peers and others he respected should view his poetry, so too did he remain sensitive to his introspective drives as

989-407: The critic Ian Hamilton also praised this book, writing, "In Roethke's second book, The Lost Son , there are several of these greenhouse poems and they are among the best things he wrote; convincing and exact, and rich in loamy detail." Michael O'Sullivan points to the phrase "uncertain congress of stinks", from the greenhouse poem " Root Cellar ", as Roethke's insistence on the ambiguous processes of

1032-428: The documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound", and that "musical and cultural diversity contributes to the vitality and quality of life throughout the world." By making these recordings available, they intend to "strengthen people's engagement with their own cultural heritage and to enhance their awareness and appreciation of the cultural heritage of others." Smithsonian Folkways has produced or co-produced

1075-629: The faculty of the University of Washington at Seattle in 1947. Roethke died in Washington in 1963. His remains are interred in Saginaw's Oakwood Cemetery. The Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation maintains his birthplace at 1805 Gratiot in Saginaw as a museum. Roethke Auditorium (Kane Hall 130) at the University of Washington is named in his honor. In 1995, the Seattle alley between Seventh and Eighth Avenues N.E. running from N.E. 45th Street to N.E. 47th Street

1118-637: The fields of endeavor, to be Guest of Honor to the first annual Banquet of the Golden Plate in Monterey, California. This was awarded by vote of the National Panel of Distinguished Americans of the Academy of Achievement . He suffered a heart attack in his friend S. Rasnics' swimming pool in 1963 and died on Bainbridge Island, Washington , aged 55. The pool was later filled in and is now a zen rock garden open to

1161-472: The football team as a tailback. After one semester, he left school to enlist in the military. During World War II , Dickey served with the U.S. Army Air Forces , where he flew thirty-eight missions in the Pacific   Theater as a P-61 Black Widow radar operator with the 418th Night Fighter Squadron , an experience that influenced his work, and for which he was awarded five Bronze Stars . . He later served in

1204-489: The most accomplished among the "middle generation" of American poets. In her 2006 book, "Break, Blow, Burn: Forty-three of the World's Best Poems," critic Camille Paglia includes three Roethke poems, more than any other 20th-century writer cited in the book. The Poetry Foundation entry on Roethke notes early reviews of his work and Roethke's response to that early criticism: W. H. Auden called [Roethke's first book] Open House "completely successful." In another review of

1247-471: The poets of the American Northwest . Some of his best known students included James Wright , Carolyn Kizer , Tess Gallagher , Jack Gilbert , Richard Hugo , and David Wagoner . The highly introspective nature of Roethke's work greatly influenced the poet Sylvia Plath . So influential was Roethke's poetry on Plath's mature poetry that when she submitted "Poem for a Birthday" to Poetry magazine, it

1290-459: The public at the Bloedel Reserve , a 150-acre (60 hectare) former private estate. There is no marker to indicate that the rock garden was the site of Roethke's death. There is a sign that commemorates his boyhood home and burial in Saginaw, Michigan. The historical marker notes in part: Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) wrote of his poetry: The greenhouse "is my symbol for the whole of life,

1333-562: The source of his creativity. Understandably, critics picked up on the self as the predominant preoccupation in Roethke's poems. Roethke's breakthrough book, The Lost Son and Other Poems , also won him considerable praise. For instance, Michael Harrington felt Roethke "found his own voice and central themes in The Lost Son" and Stanley Kunitz saw a "confirmation that he was in full possession of his art and of his vision." In Against Oblivion , an examination of forty-five twentieth century poets,

Theodore Roethke - Misplaced Pages Continue

1376-485: The world as well as poetry, spoken word, language instruction, and field recordings of people and nature. Folkways was an early supporter of Woody Guthrie , Pete Seeger , and Lead Belly , who formed the center of the American folk music revival . Folkways influenced a generation of folk singers by releasing old-time music from the 1920s and 1930s, such as Dock Boggs , Clarence Ashley , and contemporary performers like

1419-733: Was Theodore Roethke." In a Spring 1976 interview in the Paris Review (No. 65), James Dickey defended his choice of Roethke as the greatest of all American poets. Dickey states: "I don't see anyone else that has the kind of deep, gut vitality that Roethke's got. Whitman was a great poet, but he's no competition for Roethke." In his book The Western Canon; The Books and School of the Age, (1994) Yale literary critic Harold Bloom cites two Roethke books, Collected Poems and Straw for The Fire, on his list of essential writers and books. Bloom also groups Roethke with Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Penn Warren as

1462-528: Was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways . The Folkways Records & Service Co. , and its music publishing subsidiary Folkways Music Publishers, Inc. , were founded by Moses Asch and Marian Distler in 1948 in New York City . Harold Courlander

1505-712: Was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth United States Poet Laureate in 1966. He also received the Order of the South award. Dickey is best known for his novel Deliverance (1970), which was adapted into the acclaimed 1972 film of the same name . Dickey was born to lawyer Eugene Dickey and Maibelle Swift in Atlanta, Georgia , where he attended North Fulton High School in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood. After graduation from North Fulton High in 1941, Dickey completed

1548-655: Was born in Saginaw, Michigan , and grew up on the west side of the Saginaw River. His father, Otto, was a German immigrant, a market-gardener who owned a large local 25- acre greenhouse , along with his brother (Theodore's uncle). Much of Theodore's childhood was spent in this greenhouse, as reflected by the use of natural images in his poetry. In early 1923 when Roethke was 14 years old, his uncle died by suicide and his father died of cancer. Roethke noted that these events affected him deeply and influenced his work. Roethke attended

1591-495: Was born in 1981. Bronwen is an author, journalist, and lecturer. Her first book, Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon , was published in 2016. Dickey died on January 19, 1997, aged 73, six days after his last class at the University of South Carolina , where from 1968 he taught as poet in residence. Dickey spent his last years in and out of hospitals, afflicted with severe alcoholism , jaundice and later pulmonary fibrosis . Folkways Records Folkways Records

1634-638: Was editor of the Folkways Ethnic Library at the time and is credited with coming up with the name "Folkways" for the label. Asch sought to record and document sounds and music from everywhere in the world. From 1948 until Asch's death in 1986, Folkways Records released 2,168 albums. In December 1950, Folkways Music Publishers, Inc. was acquired by Howard S. Richmond . In 1964, Asch helped MGM Records start Verve Folkways Records which evolved in 1967 into Verve Forecast Records . The Folkways catalog includes traditional and contemporary music from around

1677-491: Was expelled from his position at Lafayette and he returned to Michigan. Prior to his return, he had an affair with established poet and critic Louise Bogan , one of his strongest early supporters. While teaching at Michigan State University in East Lansing , he began to suffer from manic depression , which fueled his poetic impetus. His last teaching position was at the University of Washington , leading to an association with

1720-601: Was named Roethke Mews in his honor. It adjoins the Blue Moon Tavern , one of Roethke's haunts. In 2016, the Theodore Roethke Home museum announced their "quest to find as many as possible of the 1,000 hand-numbered copies of [...] Roethke's debut collection, Open House, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the work's publication." Two-time US Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz said of Roethke, "The poet of my generation who meant most to me, in his person and in his art,

1763-444: Was released in 1972. Dickey wrote the screenplay and had a cameo in the film as a sheriff. On January 20, 1977, Dickey was invited to read his poem The Strength of Fields at the inauguration of Jimmy Carter . In November 1948 Dickey married Maxine Syerson, and three years later they had their first son, Christopher ; a second son, Kevin, was born in 1958. Christopher Dickey was a novelist and journalist, providing coverage from

Theodore Roethke - Misplaced Pages Continue

1806-510: Was selling my soul to the devil all day... and trying to buy it back at night." He was ultimately fired for shirking his work responsibilities. His first book, Into the Stone and Other Poems , was published in 1960. Drowning with Others was published in 1962, which led to a Guggenheim Fellowship (Norton Anthology, The Literature of the American South). Buckdancer's Choice (1965) earned him

1849-537: Was turned down because it displayed "too imposing a debt to Roethke." In 1952, Roethke received a Ford Foundation grant to "expand on his knowledge of philosophy and theology", and spent most of his time from June 1952 to September 1953 reading primarily existential works. Among the philosophers and theologians he read were Sören Kierkegaard , Evelyn Underhill , Meister Eckhart , Paul Tillich , Jacob Boehme , and Martin Buber . In 1953, Roethke married Beatrice O'Connell,

#454545