Theodore Huebner Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan, 1908. His family owned a local greenhouse that was mainly run by his father and uncle. Theodore spent much of his childhood playing in the greenhouse and he developed a strong appreciation for nature which is reflected in much of his poetry. In 1923, Theodore was 15 years old, his father past away from cancer and shortly after that he lost his uncle to suicide. These events would powerfully shape Theodore’s psychic and are also reflected throughout his professional career as a poet.
From 1929 to 1931, Roethke took graduate courses at the University of Michigan and later at Harvard Graduate School. The Great Depression forced Theodore to leave Harvard and begin his teaching career at Lafayette College. He later moved on to teach at Michigan State College at Lansing, however he did not last long due to a mental breakdown that caused him to be hospitalized and would prove to be reoccurring bouts of depression. Theodore did meet a friend by the name of Stanley Kunitz, who would end up being a long lasting friend and a major supporter of him throughout his life. Roethke’s depression gave him a creative spin that he channeled into his poetry making some of it extremely dark and deep. Roethke continued his teaching career at Pennsylvania State University and Bennington College.
Open House was Roethke’s first published volume of verse in 1941. It was a complete success and showed the influence of poetic models such as John Donne, William Blake, Louise Bogan, Emily Dickinson, Stanley Kunitz, and Elinor Wylie. In 1950 Roethke was awarded Guggenheim Fellowship, the Poetry magazine Levinson Prize in 1951, and major grants from the Ford Foundation and the National Institute of Arts and Letters the year after. Roethke had met and fallen in love with Beatrice O’Connell, they married in 1953 and spent their honeymoon in Italy. The Waking, one of Theodores finest poems, was published later that same year and he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize the next year. Roethke and his new bride continued to travel through Europe on a Fulbright grant. The next year he published a collection of poems entitled Words for the Wind, winning the Bollingen Prize, the Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize, and the National Book Award for it. Roethke spent some time participating in reading tours in New York and Europe. Roethke suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting friends at Bainbridge Island, Washington, 1963. During the final years of his life Theodore had composed sixty-one new poems that were published in The Far Field and later received the National Book Award in 1966. Theodore Roethke is known for his exploration of nature, personal confession, regional settings, and depth psychology and has secured his reputation as one of the most distinguished American poets of the twentieth century.
