Theodore Roethke

Photo of Theodore Roethke found several places on the web, including Today in Literature.  

Poems for consideration

"Night Journey"

"My Papa's Waltz"

"The Lost Son"

Open House, Knopf 1941
The Lost Son and Other Poems Doubleday 1948
Praise to the End! Doubleday 1951
The Waking: Poems 1933-1953 Doubleday 1953
Words for the Wind Secker & Warburg 1957
I Am! Says the Lamb Doubleday 1961
Party at the Zoo Crowell-Collier 1963
Sequence, Sometimes Metaphysical, Poems Stone Wall Press 1963
The Far Field Doubleday 1964
The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, Doubleday 1966

Roethke on the Web

poem texts (some may require you to scroll down)

• "The Bat" site 1 2 
• "The Ceiling" site 1 (audio)
• "The Chair" site 1 
• "Child on Top of a Greenhouse" site 1 2 
• "The Cow" site (audio set to music by Frank Wallace)
• "Cuttings" site 1 2 3 4 
• "Dolor" site 1 2 3 4 
• "The Donkey" site 1 2 
• "Elegy for Jane" site 1 2 3 4 5 (audio by Walter Rufus Eagles)
• "Epidermal Macabre" site 1 2 3 4 5 
• "The Far Field" site 1 2 3 4 5 
• "The Geranium" site 1 2 3 4 5 (audio by Walter Rufus Eagles)
• "The Hippo" site 1 
• "I Knew a Woman" site 1 2 3 4 (audio by Walter Rufus Eagles)
• "In a Dark Time" site 1 2 3 4 5 (audio by Michael Meade)
• "Journey into the Interior" site 1 2 3 4 5 (audio by Walter Rufus Eagles) 
• "The Lady and the Bear" site (audio set to music by Frank Wallace)
• "The Lizard" site 1 
• "The Meadow Mouse" site 1 2 
• "The Minimal" site 1 2 3 4 
• "My Papa's Waltz" site 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  (audio also by Walter Rufus Eagles) (video with commentary by William Van Fields)
• "Night Journey" site 1 2 3 4 5 
• "Once More, the Round" site 1 2 
• "Pickle Belt" site 1 2 3 4 5 
• "The Reckoning" site 1 2 3 4 5 (audio by Walter Rufus Eagles) 
• "The Return" site 1 
• "The Right Thing" site 1 
• "Root Cellar" site 1 2 
• "The Saginaw Song" site 1 2 
• "She" site 1 2 
• "The Sloth" site 1 2 3 4 (audio set to music by Frank Wallace) (video read by a fifth-grader with commentary)
• "Snake" site 1 2 3 4 (audio, set to music by Ned Rorem)
• "The Storm" site 1 2 3 4 5 (audio from SafeDigression Poemcast)
• "The Survivor" site 1 
• "The Waking" (1953) site 1 2 3 4 (audio by Walter Rufus Eagles) 5 (with music) 6 
• "The Waking" (1948) site 1 

Audio

"In a Dark Time" read by Rachel Oeschger