Selected Poems of Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
The Waking [1953]
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close behind me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lonely worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air;
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Questions for Discussion
In "The Waking," all of the following literary devices are used EXCEPT —
A) repetition
B) rhetorical questions
C) simile
D) paradox
E) personification
The tone of the poem can be BEST described as
A) meditative
B) lethargic
C) dejected
D) foreboding
E) hysterical
awareness that life leads to death
Which of the following best paraphrases the theme of
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.
Questions for Discussion
What is understated in the poem?
A) violence toward the child
B) the father's talent for waltzing
C) the child's enjoyment of his father's attention
D) the mother's happy face
According to the speaker, what is his father like?
A) caring and loving
B) nimble and smooth
C) drunken and dirty
D) busy and neglectful
"Still clinging to your shirt" (line 16) suggests the presence of what kind of irony in the poem?
A) verbal irony
B) dramatic irony
C) satirical irony
D) situational irony
1. A
2. C
3. B
Elegy for Jane [1952]
(My student, thrown by a horse)
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.
Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.
Questions for Discussion
1. The poet wrote this poem mainly to
A) describe Jane
B) criticize Jane
C) mourn Jane
D) remember Jame
E) forget Jane
2. The poet's feeling for Jane, as indicated in the poem, is one of
A) awe
B) reverence
C) regret
D) nostalgia
E) love
3. To what does the poet repeatedly compare Jane?
A) a flower
B) a shooting star
C) a bird
D) a small pet
E) a lovely song
4. The change that takes place in the poem starting with the fourth stanza is that the poet
A) becomes resigned
B) recollects further details
C) compares himself to a father
D) talks directly to the dead student
E) becomes more angry at his loss
5. The poem is powerful in its impact on the reader because the poet feels he
A) is like a father to Jane
B) is like a lover to Jane
C) is like a teacher to Jane
D) has no right to write the poem
E) is responsible for her tragedy