Theodore Roethke Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.

  Theodore Roethke

  Heart, Poet

  Theodore Roethke, Carolyn Kizer (2013). “On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose”, p.84, Copper Canyon Press

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• What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have........ ....... Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. ~From "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke

  Theodore Roethke

  Summer, Wall, Dark

  Theodore Roethke, “In A Dark Time”

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• What is desire?--
  The impulse to make someone else complete?
  That woman would set sodden straw on fire.

  Theodore Roethke

  Fire, Desire, Impulse

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.161, Anchor

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• The indignity of it!-
  With everything blooming above me,
  Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses,
  Whole fields lovely and inviolate,-
  Me down in the fetor of weeds,
  Crawling on all fours,
  Alive, in a slippery grave.

  Theodore Roethke

  Weed, Rose, Lovely

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.71, Anchor

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• In a dark time, the eye begins to see / I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.

  Theodore Roethke

  Eye, Dark, Light

  Theodore Roethke, “In A Dark Time”

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• What falls away is always. And is near.

  Theodore Roethke

  Fall

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.165, Anchor

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• I came to love, I came into my own.

  Theodore Roethke

  My Own

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.178, Anchor

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• (I measure time by how a body sways.)

  Theodore Roethke

  Body

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.187, Anchor

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• And I walked, I walked through the light air; I moved with the morning.

  Theodore Roethke

  Morning, Journey, Light

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.110, Anchor

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• The soul has many motions, body one.

  Theodore Roethke

  Soul, Body

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.346, Anchor

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• What have I done, dear God, to deserve this perpetual feeling that I'm almost ready to begin something really new?

  Theodore Roethke

  Feelings, Done, Dear God

  Theodore Roethke (2006). “Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63”, p.206, Copper Canyon Press

  12 Copy quote

• I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
  A point outside the glittering current;
  My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
  At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
  My mind moves in more than one place,
  In a country half-land, half-water.
  I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
  The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
  The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
  What I love is near at hand,
  Always, in earth and air.

  Theodore Roethke

  Country, Moving, Eye

  Theodore Roethke, “The Far Field”

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• To follow the drops sliding from a lifting oar, Head up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward.

  Theodore Roethke

  Rowing, Boat, Breathe

  Theodore Roethke, “The Shape Of The Fire”

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• A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.

  Theodore Roethke

  Teaching, Rooms, Suggestions

  Theodore Roethke (2006). “Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63”, p.156, Copper Canyon Press

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• I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing, In my veins, in my bones I feel it,- The small water seeping upward, The tight grains parting at last. When sprouts break out, Slippery as fish, I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.

  Theodore Roethke

  Cutting, Water, Break Out

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.68, Anchor

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• A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominable;Yet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,The burning lake turns into a forest pool,The fire subsides into rings of water,A sunlit silence.

  Theodore Roethke

  Heart, Fire, Lakes

  Theodore Roethke (1975). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, Anchor Books

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• But when I breath with the birds, The spirit of wrath becomes the spirit of blessings, And the dead begin from their dark to sing in my sleep.

  Theodore Roethke

  Sleep, Dark, Blessing

  Theodore Roethke, William J. Martz (1966). “The achievement of Theodore Roethke: a comprehensive selection of his poems”

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• How terrible the need for God.

  Theodore Roethke

  God, Needs, Terrible

  Theodore Roethke (2006). “Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63”, p.149, Copper Canyon Press

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• What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?

  Theodore Roethke

  Book, Important, Importance

  Theodore Roethke, Carolyn Kizer (2013). “On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose”, p.179, Copper Canyon Press

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• I can't go on flying apart just for those who want the benefit of a few verbal kicks. My God, do you know what poems like that cost? They're not written vicariously: they come out of actual suffering, real madness.

  Theodore Roethke

  Real, Flying, Suffering

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• Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;Too close immediacy an exhaustion

  Theodore Roethke

  Reality, Dazzle, Too Much

  Theodore Roethke (1975). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, Anchor Books

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• The light comes brighter from the east; the cawOf restive crows is sharper on the ear.

  Theodore Roethke

  Light, Crow, East

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• Let others probe the mystery if they can.Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will -The right thing happens to the happy man.

  Theodore Roethke

  Men, Mystery, Prisoner

  Theodore Roethke, “The Right Thing”

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• Being, not doing, is my first joy.

  Theodore Roethke

  Joy, Firsts

  Theodore Roethke (2011). “The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke”, p.316, Anchor

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• O Lord, may I never want to look good. O Jesus, may I always read it all: out loud and the very way it should be. May I never look at the other findings until I have come to my own true conclusions: May I care for the least of the young: and become aware of the one poem that each may have written; may I be aware of what each thing is, delighted with form, and wary of the false comparison; may I never use the word "brilliant."

  Theodore Roethke

  Jesus, Teaching, Use

  Theodore Roethke, Carolyn Kizer (2013). “On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose”, p.134, Copper Canyon Press

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