00:01:19.140 - 00:01:36.630

Morton Marcus: Tonight's poet is one of the great poets of America, he is also one of the great mystical poets of America. And in one poem, he sums up brilliantly what he was seeking, the spirit, what is beyond all of us, and yet so much with us,

00:01:37.020 - 00:01:54.950

and he called the poem, A LIGHT BREATHER and it goes like this: The spirit moves, yet stays: stirs as a blossom stirs, still wet from its bud-sheath, slowly unfolding, turning in the light

00:01:54.950 - 00:02:16.130

with its tendrils, plays as a minnow plays, tethered to a limp weed, swinging, tail around, nosing in and out of the current, its shadow loose, a watery finger; moves like a snail still inward, taking and embracing its surroundings,

00:02:16.580 - 00:02:33.950

never wishing itself away, unafraid of what it is, a music in a hood, a small thing, singing. His name was Theodore Roethke and he will be the subject of tonight's Poetry Show.

00:02:54.810 - 00:03:12.120

Well, welcome to tonight's Poetry Show. I'm your host, Mort Marcus and tonight I've got two guests, and the three of us will be discussing the poetry approach and subject matter of the great American poet, Theodore Roethke. Roethke was

00:03:12.120 - 00:03:39.390

born on May 25th, 1908, and he died in 1963. This will be his hundred and first anniversary of his birth on May 25th, obviously of this year. To help us celebrate is a wonderful poet, and actually a lady who grew up in the town where Roethke was

00:03:39.390 - 00:03:50.310

born, and that is Rosie King. Welcome, Rosie. Rosie King: Thank you, Mort. Morton Marcus: And our old friend, the wonderful poet and buddy, Joe Stroud.

00:03:50.970 - 00:04:00.750

Joseph Stroud: Hello, Mort. Morton Marcus: That was eloquent. Joseph Stroud: I'm a one syllable kind of person. Morton Marcus: Rosie, why don't you tell us a little bit about

00:04:00.750 - 00:04:15.310

Roethke's life. Rosie King: Well, the- one of the main things to know about Theodore Roethke is that his grandfather came from Germany and brought five children, and two of those were brothers, and

00:04:15.340 - 00:04:42.430

they started off a very large- on a very- 25 acres of land, a very large flower growing business with lots of greenhouses. And Roethke grew up in this amazing world of his father, and flowers and nature all around. And it was when, you

00:04:42.430 - 00:05:00.790

know, Michigan was still full of woods and rivers that were unspoiled and Roethke spent a lot of his childhood out, you know, right on the earth with all kinds of little creatures. And as you might have heard from the poem that you read to begin

00:05:00.790 - 00:05:24.820

with, Mort, all of Roethke's, poems are really so grounded, the spirit is grounded in nature. And that was a huge influence for him all the while and then his family had a big turn. His, the two brothers, his father and his uncle, were in

00:05:24.820 - 00:05:46.600

business together and they had a big quarrel, and the business completely fell apart. And this was when Roethke was about 13, 14. And the uncle killed himself and the father had heart problems and died, you know, within the year. So, all of this

00:05:46.600 - 00:06:06.760

happened at the same time and all of Roethke's world of childhood was, you know, virtually gone, except for, of course, the whole earth all around him and he took all of this, you know, deeply into his being and into his poetry as he

00:06:07.330 - 00:06:31.720

grew up and became a poet. So he went from from Saginaw, Michigan, to the University of Michigan and then to Harvard. And he taught English at Bennington and that's where he met his wife who- his wife, Beatrice, and they were married

00:06:31.960 - 00:06:52.480

for 10 years. And they lived and he taught at the- towards the end of his life, he was only 53 when he died, no, 55. His father was 53. That's right and so, he taught and they lived in Seattle. He taught at the University of Washington at the

00:06:52.480 - 00:07:09.460

end of his life and was renowned as a teacher of poets. Morton Marcus: And I go so far as to say, he actually started the whole Renaissance, if you want to call it that, or beginnings of really, Northwes poetry. He's really responsibl

00:07:09.460 - 00:07:25.350

for that, and his students a d his whole approach to the worl . He was a varied poet, but, y u know, there were also ment l problems and I think we have o mention thos Rosie King: This is absolutely so, Roethke had periods when he

00:07:25.350 - 00:07:46.050

was very depressed and other times when he was, you know, just manic and he has, you know, he would sometimes bring these episodes into classrooms in ways that sometimes inspired and sometimes shocked and amused or, you know, all kinds of moods and

00:07:46.050 - 00:08:12.930

and great ranges of emotional and creative life, so that students got to see, got to se someone who was able to continu to create. He would return t Saginaw, he had one sister, wh was five years younger, he woul return to Saginaw every summer

00:08:12.960 - 00:08:30.450

I think until, probably until h met Beatrice and I don't kno what about after that, to liv in his family home. And hi sister and his mother, you know would take care of them i between these episodes, s sometimes he would be, you know

00:08:30.450 - 00:08:45.330

they would find a shelter fo him, you know, some place he ha shock therapy at differen points and they, in a way, hi sister was there, the siste lived way past him into her mi 80s

00:08:46.020 - 00:08:58.530

Morton Marcus: I think it's important to mention that because the poems are so intense, and they're so deep. I mean, the poems really have a manic depressive, which is what he was. I think we call it bipolar now, but it was really

00:08:58.530 - 00:09:17.880

manic depression and that doesn't take away from them, it just makes the poems sharper, and, and even much more evocative, I think. Rosie King: Well, as I understand Roethke's poetry and

00:09:17.880 - 00:09:37.960

his life together, his intention was to really, you know, it wasn't even his intention but there's this longing, in a way, to really go to the edge to find the spirit in, you know, his Morton Marcus: A continuous something and it's interesting

00:09:34.140 - 00:09:47.380

suffering. you say, you use the word longing and edge, and this becomes more and more apparent. Everything seems to be a longing to get to the spirit, and he finally will move to the edge of

00:09:47.380 - 00:10:04.690

the continent to find it, yeah. Joe, what is it about Roethke's poetry that really moves you, the center of the poems as you see it? Joseph Stroud: Well, first of all it's the language. And when

00:10:04.690 - 00:10:20.770

I discovered Roethke in 1962, back in the stacks of the Los Angeles State College Library, I was just wandering around back there looking through the poetry section and came across a book called, "Words for the Wind." And the first poem I turned to

00:10:20.770 - 00:10:42.010

was, "The Lost Son." And I had never encountered poetry like that before, somebody who- It wasn't just that his connection to the natural world was so strong and I felt a real rapport with that, but someone who tried to go back into a state of

00:10:42.010 - 00:11:00.010

innocence, into almost a pre-language state, and right out of that. No one that I know of has ever, ever tried to do that before, at least in poetry. I think he was somewhat influenced by Joyce and Ulysses in that approach, but certainly

00:11:00.010 - 00:11:19.390

no poet had ever done it before and it just completely took the floor out from under me. I was just stunned. I had wanted to study with Roethke after that. I went to San Francisco State and the curious thing is that, not the same day, but that semester

00:11:19.390 - 00:11:40.930

when I was at LA State thinking about Roethke, he was up in Seattle, which is where he died that same year, in '62. But you know, the thing about Roethke, this whole issue of his bipolar or his manic depressive issues, there were long periods of time

00:11:40.930 - 00:11:58.150

when he was, when he was perfectly, I don't want to say normal, but he was not under the influence of- either in a manic state or a depressive state. It was the manic states that got him into the most, most trouble. He would begin to think that he

00:11:58.150 - 00:12:16.810

had superhuman powers and that he was extremely wealthy, so he would go on these immediate, these incredible spending sprees where he would start buying things and sending people tons and tons of flowers. And when Beatrice would see suddenly that

00:12:17.260 - 00:12:29.890

Roethke's calling everybody he knows, that she would know that he was- it was approaching something, was coming on. But there wasn't, there was an awful lot of- Roethke liked in a certain sense the idea of being in kind of a mad poet, connected

00:12:29.890 - 00:12:46.630

with Blake and John Clare and people of that sort, but it wasn't pleasant. He had the horrible experience of- one time of having a manic episode in one of his classes up at the University of Washington and the secretary from his department

00:12:46.630 - 00:13:00.490

got nervous and the students were a bit nervous. And they called the police and they said, you know, that this, he just needs some help, you know, don't rough him up. And so, they went into the classroom, took him out in handcuffs, had him bent over

00:13:00.490 - 00:13:16.690

just when classes were changing. So, there's the incredible horror of him being led down the hall by police with his arms behind his back in cuffs, head bowed to the ground, while the students were exchanging classes, and episodes like that

00:13:16.690 - 00:13:31.180

haunted him quite a bit. It wasn't- but a part of it was also his intensity. Morton Marcus: Yeah, you see, it's the intensity that for me akes the connection with what as going on with his mental

00:13:31.180 - 00:13:46.000

ssues. Whether or not he was anic or depressive at the time, e keeps coming back again and gain into the later, the later poems and we're going to have to talk about the variety i a second, to this looking for hat he called identity. And

00:13:46.000 - 00:14:03.040

the identity is to really find the spirit within himself or wi hin the characters he cre ted because he had maintained hat his poems really were dram tic poems with characters in t em. And go

00:14:03.000 - 00:14:16.020

Joseph Stroud: Well, one of the things, I don't remember him writing much poetry about characters, but what was unique about him was his identification with the natural world. But for him, the natural world was a replication of his own interior

00:14:16.020 - 00:14:31.800

life. So, when he talks about, you know, orchids, or trees or snakes or whatever, it's simultaneously a discussion of what's going on out there, bu it's also a representation o what's going on in his interio world. And he's got that ver

00:14:31.800 - 00:14:46.770

strange back and forth kind o connection, which was quit unique. I mean, there'd bee other, you know, great natu e poets, you know, Wordsworth f r example, but nature was alwa s out there with a big capital , and for Roethke, it was, it w

00:14:46.770 - 00:15:01.940

s a very- it was very much inter or as well, but it was part of is own psyc Morton Marcus: Yeah, where he'll finally go, let's say on the roads, he will find that inner spirit, but at the same time, it

00:15:01.940 - 00:15:19.190

has to be rooted in the world. So, as a mystic, this is what makes him very unique also. You don't give up the world, you have to stay in tune with the world to be able to your going interior and exterior at the same time. But anyway, he even

00:15:19.190 - 00:15:35.210

said the Lost Son were characters that he was creating, and he always looked at it that way, although all the details were very autobiographical. And he would go back to the greenhouse that Rosie was talking about again, and again

00:15:35.210 - 00:15:47.520

and again, even in those long last poems, you know, the "Journey into the Interior." Joseph Stroud: Well, the Lost Son is him, he is the lost son. And it's about, I mean, that poem comes directly from- Rosie

00:15:47.520 - 00:16:04.800

mentioned the fact that you know, that he grew up in this incredible world of greenhouses and nature. It was a very [unidentified] world for him, his father was almost a godlike figure, he made everything grow. It was just teeming, seeding

00:16:04.800 - 00:16:18.660

world of nature. And at the age of 13, adolescence just moving in, his father died, his uncle committed suicide. And that whole- and the greenhouses were taken down, that whole world was destroyed, completely gone.

00:16:18.690 - 00:16:33.240

Morton Marcus: Okay. I don't want to argue this point. I want to get on. But he says himself, that the Lost Son was actually not him, but were characters in dramatic situations in that most of his poems were characters in dramatic situations.

00:16:33.300 - 00:16:41.910

Joseph Stroud: A bunch of moonshine. Rosie King: I don't agree, either. Joseph Stroud: I don't believe it. I've read everything I could Morton Marcus: "On Poetry and Craft," it's right in there.

00:16:39.180 - 00:16:52.050

find. Anyway, let's go on. I would like to read some of the poems. I'd like to read some of his early poems, because one of the things we've not said is that he was a poet of enormous variety.

00:16:52.920 - 00:17:06.810

And though they were these serious problems we've been talking about, there were also these very, very, very wonderful, almost comical poems that you think were children's poems or nonsense poems, although they were so clever and

00:17:06.810 - 00:17:25.050

so well done, because that variety was also in- sometimes almost going back to an Elizabethan series of poems with rhyme schemes, closed forms. He wrote brilliant villanelles. But Joe's got something for us right now.

00:17:25.000 - 00:17:39.640

Joseph Stroud: This is one of his from his first book, "Open House." It's closed form, is written in rhyming couplets, and it's about a very simple subject, about a bat but you might want to notice what he does with it, it gets kind of

00:17:39.640 - 00:17:56.440

macabre. It's called THE BAT. By day, the bat is cousin to the mouse. He likes the attic of an aging house. His fingers make a hat about his head. His pulse

00:17:56.560 - 00:18:15.820

beat is so slow, we think him dead. He loops in crazy figures half the night among the trees that face the corner light. But when he brushes up against the screen, we are afraid of what our eyes have seen, for something is amiss or out of

00:18:15.820 - 00:18:30.330

place when mice with wings can wear a human face. Morton Marcus: Yeah, there's also the sloth, which I realized I did not, do not have. Joseph Stroud: That's a much later poem. That's one of the

00:18:30.330 - 00:18:41.910

children poems from "I Am! Said the Lamb." Morton Marcus: The thing was that he wrote these poems throughout his life while he was writing and we were talking about the "Lost Son." And he was a brilliant exponent of free

00:18:41.910 - 00:18:57.090

verse as well as closed verse, and really had a wonderful ear, and rhythm was a very, very important part of his canon. Joseph Stroud: Well, he began, like a lot of the poets from his generation, he began as a formalist poet who wrote in

00:18:57.090 - 00:19:15.990

closed forms, meter and rhyme, and then gradually moved away from that, moved into more open forms, in the free verse. Unlike, you know, younger poets today who began with free verse, and have had no training or no ear for closed forms, it was

00:19:15.990 - 00:19:35.580

just the opposite. That's, well, we can- that's another topic all together, those poets who did begin as closed form poets and then moved into free verse is, it's a whole, there's a whole generation and it makes their own free verse extremely sharp

00:19:35.670 - 00:19:54.530

and lucid and hard and hard wrought in a much way, in a way that's much different from the sort of looser prosier type of free verse that you hear today, can we say hear? Morton Marcus: You can say hear. Yes, very definitely. I'd like

00:19:54.560 - 00:20:12.020

to go on and get into "The Lost Son" poems but start off with a wonderful poem from Part One, which are these wonderful little evocations of the greenhouse and the growing things in there, in my book on page 379. I know, Rosie, you wanted to read a lot

00:20:12.020 - 00:20:29.360

of these. And you people out there, listen to the rhythms that he's using. It's the first part of "The Lost Son" and listen to the rhythms that he uses, how he slows them down, how he speeds them up, the oral sounds of them and just the the

00:20:29.360 - 00:20:39.870

wonderful phrasing sometimes. Sometimes these poems just spit and snarl, and they're just, they're really amazing. Rosie King: Shall we start with "Cuttings?" Morton Marcus: Sounds great.

00:20:39.990 - 00:21:01.800

Rosie King: Okay, CUTTINGS. Sticks-in-a-drowse droop over sugary loam, their intricate stem-fur dries; but still the delicate slips keep coaxing up water, the small cells bulge; one nub of growth nudges a

00:21:01.800 - 00:21:13.170

sand-crumb loose, pokes through a musty sheath, it's pale tendrilous horn. Morton Marcus: And then in CUTTINGS (LATER), totally different rhythm.

00:21:14.010 - 00:21:32.040

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks, cut stems struggling to put down feet. What saint strained so much, rose on such lopped limbs to a new life. I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing. In my veins, in my

00:21:32.040 - 00:21:49.500

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. Joe how about "Root Cellar," do you have that?

00:21:49.890 - 00:22:02.380

Joseph Stroud: I do, but I want to do "Orchids" instead. Morton Marcus: Okay, go, go. Joseph Stroud: ORCHIDS They lean over the path, adder-mouthed, swaying close to

00:22:02.380 - 00:22:24.760

the face, coming out, soft and deceptive, limp and damp, delicate as a young bird's tongue. Their fluttery fledgling lips move slowly, drawing in the warm air. And at night, the faint moon falling through whitewashed glass, the heat

00:22:24.790 - 00:22:43.960

going down so their musky smell comes even stronger, drifting down from their mossy cradles: So many devouring infants, soft luminescent fingers, lips neither dead nor alive, loose ghostly mouths breathing.

00:22:45.490 - 00:23:01.260

Morton Marcus: Rosie. Rosie King: MOSS-GATHERING To loosen with all ten fingers held wide and limber and lift up a patch, dark green, the kind for lining cemetery baskets,

00:23:01.740 - 00:23:21.330

thick and cushiony, like an old fashioned doormat. The crumbling small hollow sticks on the underside mixed with roots, and wintergreen berries and leaves still stuck to the top– That was moss-gathering. But something always went out of me when I dug

00:23:21.330 - 00:23:38.670

loose those carpets of green, or plunged to my elbows and the spongy yellowish moss of the marshes: And afterwards, I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road, as if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland,

00:23:39.090 - 00:23:54.790

disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance, by pulling off flash from the living planet, as if I had committed against the whole scheme of life, a desecration. Morton Marcus: And I should say that Rosie read that

00:23:54.790 - 00:24:18.640

beautifully. What you got was a sense of really long lines which he would come back to again in the "North American Sequence" and in the "Meditations of an Old Woman." Joe, go on, read another, shall we?

00:24:19.080 - 00:24:36.020

Joseph Stroud: CHILD ON TOP OF A GREENHOUSE The wind billowing out the seat of my britches, my feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty. The halfgrown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers, up through the

00:24:36.020 - 00:24:55.840

streaked glass, flashing with sunlight. A few of white clouds all rushing eastward, a line of elms plunging and tossing like horses, and everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting! Morton Marcus: Would you both mind if I asked you to read with

00:24:55.840 - 00:25:14.380

me for the end of this half hour the poem that we've been talking about which is "The Lost Son," and maybe we'll each take a section? And this is one of the first real longings for the spiritual world. And it's been described as his running away

00:25:15.580 - 00:25:28.750

from this hunt for the soul that I've always looked at as running toward that, but it's been described as otherwise. So, shall we try to do that? Joseph Stroud: Sure.

00:25:28.780 - 00:25:44.530

Morton Marcus: It goes, a lot of changes, a lot of changes, and it's something. Rosie, would you start us off? Rosie King: Sure. We could say, once there are, I think there are five parts. Okay, so we'll just go. The first part is

00:25:44.530 - 00:25:55.210

called "The Flight." This is THE LOST SON THE FLIGHT At Woodlawn, I heard the dead cry. I was lulled by the

00:25:55.210 - 00:26:19.930

slamming of iron, a slow drip over stones, toads brooding in wells. All the leaves stuck out their tongues. I shook the softening chalk of my bones saying, snail, snail, glister me forward. Bird, soft-sigh me home. Worm, be with me. This is

00:26:19.930 - 00:26:47.230

my hard time. Fished in an old wound, the soft pond of repose; nothing nibbled my line, not even the minnows came. Sat in an empty house watching shadows crawl, scratching. There was one fly. Voice, come out of the silence. Say something. Appear

00:26:47.230 - 00:27:16.090

in the form of a spider or a moth beating the curtain. Tell me: which is the way I take; out of what door do I go, where and to whom? Dark hollows said, lee to the wind. The moon said, back of an eel. The salt said, look by the sea. Your tears are not

00:27:16.090 - 00:27:35.140

enough praise, you will find no comfort here, in the kingdom of bang and blab. Running lightly over spongy ground, past the pastor of flat stones, the three elms, the sheep strewn on a field, over a rickety bridge toward the quick-water,

00:27:35.710 - 00:27:56.290

wrinkling and rippling. Hunting along the river, down among the rubbish, the bug-riddled foilage by the muddy pond-edge, by the bog-holes, by the shrunken lake, hunting, in the heat of summer. The shape of a rat? It's bigger than that. It's less than a leg

00:27:56.500 - 00:28:15.130

and more than a nose, just under the water it usually goes. Is it soft like a mouse? Can it wrinkle its nose? Could it come in the house on the tips of its toes? Take the skin of a cat and the back of an eel, then roll them in grease– that's the way

00:28:15.130 - 00:28:30.680

it would feel. It's sleek as an otter with wide webby toes just under the water it usually goes. Morton Marcus: 2. THE PIT Where do the roots go? Look down under the leaves. Who put the

00:28:30.680 - 00:28:47.030

moss there? These stones have been here too long. Who stunned the dirt into noise? Ask the mole, he knows. I feel the slime of a wet nest. Beware Mother Mildew. Nibble again, fish nerves.

00:28:51.320 - 00:28:59.060

Joseph Stroud: I think I'm going to jump ahead to the last section because it's a pretty long poem. Morton Marcus: Okay. Joseph Stroud: Is that okay, Mort?

00:29:00.290 - 00:29:10.270

Morton Marcus: Well, I [unintelligible]. Joseph Stroud: IT WAS BEGINNING OF WINTER, Each of the sections are more or less self contained, so it's not that much of a violation.

00:29:11.980 - 00:29:31.750

It was beginning winter, an in-between time, the landscape still partly brown: the bones of weeds kept swinging in the wind, above the blue snow. It was beginning winter, the light moved slowly over the frozen field, over the dry seed-crowns,

00:29:32.260 - 00:29:56.680

the beautiful surviving bones swinging in the wind. Light traveled over the wide field; stayed. The weeds stopped swinging. The mind moved, not alone, through the clear air, in the silence. Was it light? Was it light within? Was it light

00:29:56.710 - 00:30:21.390

within light? Stillness, becoming alive, yet still? A lively understandable spirit once entertained you. It will come again, be still, wait. Morton Marcus: I certainly suggest people out there, you

00:30:21.390 - 00:30:36.660

know, try to pick up the book there. It's not very easy to find Roethke's books now, even though there is on Amazon, his collected poems are in Amazon in the latest issue which actually is around 30 years old, but it's still available.

00:30:36.990 - 00:30:40.170

Joseph Stroud: I think there's a new edition. Morton Marcus: Really? Joseph Stroud: Yeah Morton Marcus: By Doubleday?

00:30:40.890 - 00:30:55.230

Joseph Stroud: I'm not sure if it's Doubleday or not, but probably it is. But it's not- I don't think the issue is that you can't find his poems anymore, they're certainly available. The issue for me is, you know, the young poets that I

00:30:55.230 - 00:31:08.850

talked to, come across, none of them or very few of them have read Roethke. And if they have read him, they read him in some little anthology, most likely "My Papa's Waltz." Morton Marcus: Or it's "For My Student, Jane."

00:31:08.900 - 00:31:22.430

Joseph Stroud: Or yeah, "Thrown by a Horse," which are, which are fine poems, I don't want to, you know, dismiss them. But his real work is otherworldly, I mean, it's something quite different than those than those anthologized pieces. And I'm

00:31:22.430 - 00:31:39.890

always stunned by the number of poets who don't read Roethke, among many others that they no longer read. Morton Marcus: Yeah. Well, I know that- and I know Roethke was a tremendous influence on me and the Santa Cruz Mountain

00:31:39.890 - 00:31:54.550

poems could not have been written without Roethke. What about you, Joe? Joseph Stroud: Oh, yeah, huge influence. Rosie King: Yeah, well, huge on me. Although, you know, I was

00:31:54.940 - 00:32:14.350

not a student of Roethke's, I was a student of his sister, June, in ninth grade English, just after he got the Pulitzer Prize, and we didn't know anything about it then in Saginaw. I was 14, 13. But as, as I grew up, and I was given

00:32:14.350 - 00:32:34.750

these books that I'm reading now from very early on, in fact, the "Words for the Wind," Roethke came to my college in Massachusetts when I was a sophomore, and I had never met him, and I went up to him with this book, and he signed it. He

00:32:34.750 - 00:33:01.930

was the very first live poet I ever met. I didn't meet him, you know, where we both were born but it was, you know, he was so formidable as his sister was. They were both huge, bear-like people. And I think I could really honestly say that I used

00:33:01.930 - 00:33:19.360

a lot of these poems as touchstones for finding my own way whenever I would get lost. I mean, I felt like the lost daughter sometimes and I did the same kind of transplanting that Roethke did from, you know, Michigan to the East Coast and

00:33:19.360 - 00:33:30.760

then to the West Coast. Morton Marcus: As Roethke himself said, there's nothing wrong with imitation, especially for young poets. And I'll add to that, if you're imitating the best, you know, that's certainly

00:33:30.760 - 00:35:48.280

true. We will return to our guests and the poetry of Theodore Roethke after a short musical break and some public announcements. You are listening to the Poetry Show and KUSPS's Poetry Show is supported in part by a grant from the Writer's

00:35:48.280 - 00:36:03.640

Journey Workshop in Santa Cruz, offering weekly classes to help writers awaken creativity and discover a writer's voice. Seven time author Laura Davis welcomes writers of all levels, information on summer classes at LauraDavis.net.

00:36:09.060 - 00:36:24.990

And I guess you should read this one too. KUSP's Sunday night jazz program is Giant Steps hosted by Harold Feldstein. Giant Steps features music by John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and other giants of modern jazz as well as contemporary jazz

00:36:24.990 - 00:36:43.020

masters and new artists at the forefront of improvised music. Here, Giant Steps every Sunday night from 10 to midnight, on Central Coast Public Radio KUSP and tonight we are looking at the poetry and talking about the poetry of Theodore Roethke. I

00:36:43.020 - 00:37:01.050

have just been informed that the H is silent, but I've never silenced that H in my life. And we're here with the wonderful poets, Rosie King and Joe Stroud, so let us continue. We've gotten this far as "The Lost Son." Roethke actually

00:37:01.050 - 00:37:13.450

wrote, I'm never going to learn it, Roethke actually wrote some wonderful love poems also. Joseph Stroud: Oh yeah, there are wonderful love poem. Morton Marcus: We should go into some of those. Which one of you

00:37:13.450 - 00:37:28.830

wants to take on- ? Some of these are very, very spiritual, delicate poems, and some of them are very, very physical and sensuous. Joseph Stroud: Well, some of them are long. "Words for the

00:37:28.830 - 00:37:38.130

Wind" is a very long love poem. It's a beautiful, beautiful love poem, but a shorter one is just a little poem of his called "She" Rosie King: That's good.

00:37:39.390 - 00:37:55.510

Joseph Stroud: with a very unusual opening. SHE I think the dead are tender. Shall we kiss? -- My lady laughs, delighting in what is. If she but sighs, a bird puts

00:37:55.510 - 00:38:16.840

out its tongue. She makes space lonely with a lovely song. She lilts a low soft language, and I hear down long sea-chambers of the inner ear. We sing together; we sing mouth to mouth. The garden is a river flowing south. She cries out loud the souls own

00:38:16.840 - 00:38:37.990

secret joy. She dances and the ground bears her away. She knows the speech of light and makes it plain, a lively thing can come to life again. I feel her presence in the common day, in that slow dark that widens every eye. She moves as water moves,

00:38:38.230 - 00:38:57.850

and comes to me, stayed by what was and pulled by what would be. Morton Marcus: And you know, Joe, that description of the woman in many of the love poems like that, it's very much the description of the spirit and what he's looking for. That

00:38:57.850 - 00:39:15.850

gentleness, that softness, that almost weightlessness. And always movement, always movement in the poems. He comes back to that again and again. Here's another kind of love poem, again in rhyme and very sensual and very jocular, and it's called:

00:39:15.880 - 00:39:33.130

I KNEW A WOMAN I knew a woman, lovely in her bones. When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them. Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of

00:39:33.130 - 00:39:50.800

her choice virtues only gods should speak, or English poets who grew up on Greek (I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek). How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin, she taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand. She

00:39:50.800 - 00:40:11.350

taught me Touch, that undulant white skin; I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand. She was the sickle, I, poor I, the rake coming behind her for pretty sake. (But what prodigious mowing we did make). Love likes a gander and adores a goose. Her

00:40:11.350 - 00:40:31.570

full lips pursed, the errant note to seize. She played it quick, she played it light and loose. My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees. Her several parts could keep a pure repose, or one hip quiver with a mobile nose. (She moved in circles, and

00:40:31.570 - 00:40:53.230

those circles moved). Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay. I'm martyr to a motion not my own. What's freedom for? To know eternity. I swear she cast a shadow over widest stone. But who would count eternity in days? These old bones live to

00:40:53.230 - 00:41:10.840

learn her wanton ways. (I measure time by how a body sways). Rosie King: Well, I'm skipping ahead in the chronology of the poems. I'd like to read:

00:41:10.840 - 00:41:32.350

WISH FOR A YOUNG WIFE My lizard, my lively writher, may your limbs never wither, may the eyes in your face survive the green ice of envy's mean gaze. May you live out your life without hate, without grief, and

00:41:32.350 - 00:41:47.710

your hair ever blaze, in the sun, in the sun, when I am undone, when I am no one. Morton Marcus: Very nice. Joseph Stroud: That was for Beatrice.

00:41:47.840 - 00:42:04.650

Rosie King: That was. Joseph Stroud: Who I had the opportunity of meeting. When Roethke died, Beatrice sold their home in Seattle and moved to San Francisco to pursue an MFA in English. And my friend at

00:42:04.650 - 00:42:22.200

the time, John Logan, got to know Beatrice and through John, I got to know her. I had spent many wonderful evenings at her house, she was a wonderful hostess, a marvelous cook, and oh- just a wonderful woman. I became extremely fond of her and

00:42:23.700 - 00:42:41.310

we, Ellen and I, one summer took care of her dog while she went to Europe. And as a gift to us, when she got back, she gave Ellen the chair that she has a specially made for Roethke, which is in our house to this day. If you see the film "In a

00:42:41.310 - 00:42:52.930

Dark Time," where Roethke's reading his poems, and he's in this beautiful white chair reading, that's the chair that is presently in my house. Morton Marcus: And I wrote a poem about the dog and you and

00:42:53.020 - 00:43:14.760

anyone else. Right. Yeah. Well, let us go on. Let us some- Let me, as I skipped ahead before, let's again give some of this variety in him. And I'll read that poem I talked about before. And as you said it, it came later, and it's called, "The

00:43:13.990 - 00:43:26.650

THE SLOTH. Sloth," and it's one of these nonsense poems. It comes two pages after one of my favorite poems, which is called "Dinky." But here's

00:43:28.780 - 00:43:50.680

In moving slow he has no peer. You ask him something in his ear, he thinks about it for a year. And then before he says a word, there, upside down (unlike a bird), he will assume that you have heard, a most exasperating lug. But should you call his

00:43:50.680 - 00:44:11.090

manner smug, he'll sigh and give his branch a hug. Then off again to sleep he goes, still swaying gently by his toes, and you just know, he knows, he knows. And again, a very, very technically accomplished poem.

00:44:11.450 - 00:44:26.120

In tercets, three line stanzas, which each stanza just has one rhyme to it, you know, and he just seems to toss these things off. Okay, let's switch gears again and go into other moods. Rosie.

00:44:27.590 - 00:44:43.730

Rosie King: Well, I was thinking of, did I say earlier, "Meditations at Oyster River," well, "Meditation at Oyster River." Joseph Stroud: This is from his last book.

00:44:44.360 - 00:45:00.080

Rosie King: This is from "The Far Field," and this book was- got the National Book Award, as did "Words for the Wind." Joseph Stroud: No, "Words for the Wind" won the Pulitzer Prize.

00:45:01.680 - 00:45:12.690

Rosie King: Also got National Book Award. Well, it's right on there. Joseph Stroud: Well, I'll be darned. Rosie King: I think it's "The Waking" that got the Pulitzer.

00:45:12.990 - 00:45:24.210

Morton Marcus: Oh, well anyway, folks, he got a ot of honors. Rosie King: He did. Morton Marcus: I know, no one was quite writing poems anyway, anything like this at the point.

00:45:25.290 - 00:45:43.530

Rosie King: What I love about this poem. It's called MEDITATION AT OYSTER RIVER and I've never been to Oyster River but it shows Roethke very close to the way he wrote sometimes. It's getting very close to water and down with the small things,

00:45:45.540 - 00:46:00.490

small live things. Over the low, barnacled, elephant-colored rocks come the first tide ripples, moving, almost without sound, toward me, running along the narrow furrows of the shore, the rows of dead

00:46:00.490 - 00:46:22.240

clamshells. Then a runnel behind me, creeping closer, alive with tiny striped fish and young young crabs climbing in and out of the water. No sound from the bay, no violence. Even the goals quiet on the far rocks, silent, in the deepening light. Their

00:46:22.240 - 00:46:41.500

cat-mewing over, their child-whimpering. At last one long undulant ripple, blue black from where I am sitting, makes almost a wave over a barrier of small stones, slapping lightly against a sunken log. I dabble my toes in the brackish foam

00:46:41.500 - 00:47:02.050

sliding forward, then retire to a rock higher up on the cliffside. The wind slackens, light as a moth fanning a stone, a twilight wind, light as a child's breath, turning not a leaf, not a ripple. The dew revives on the beach grass, the

00:47:02.500 - 00:47:18.880

salt-soaked wood of a fire crackles. A fish raven turns on its perch (a dead tree in the river mouth), its wings catching a last glint of the reflected sunlight. Two. Yes?

00:47:18.910 - 00:47:35.380

Morton Marcus: Yes. Rosie King: The self persists like a dying star. In sleep, afraid. Death's face rises afresh among the shy beasts. The deer at the Salt Lick, the doe, with its sloped shoulders,

00:47:35.380 - 00:47:55.240

loping across the highway. The young snake, poised in green leaves, waiting for its fly. The hummingbird, whirring from quince blossom to Morning-Glory. With these I would be. And with water: the waves coming forward without cessation, the waves

00:47:55.360 - 00:48:13.450

altered by sandbars, beds of kelp, miscellaneous driftwood, topped by cross-winds, tugged at by sinuous undercurrents, the tide rustling in, sliding between the ridges of stone, the tongues of water creeping in quietly.

00:48:14.290 - 00:48:25.630

Morton Marcus: And those are the first two sections of "Meditation at Oyster River." Some of these poems are very long, and we're just going to be able to read sections of it. Joe, I know that you wanted to read them from the "Meditations

00:48:25.660 - 00:48:44.710

of an Old Woman," which is an earlier sequence, but is again really beautiful. And when he really opens up to these long lines, and I must say that these lines are self-contained lines. They're usually unstopped and if there is anything going on, it

00:48:44.710 - 00:49:01.870

is going on in the interior of the lines, very much like Whitman and as this book, "The Far Field," goes on, he begins to call on Whitman and really sound like Whitman and then I will read from the rows where he almost is going an imitation of

00:49:01.870 - 00:49:18.550

"I Hear America Singing." But Joe, you got something? Joseph Stroud: This is the first Meditation from MEDITATIONS OF AN OLD WOMAN, he wrote four of them. It's the old woman speaking. He said that the poem was modeled on his mother. I'll

00:49:18.550 - 00:49:41.080

read the fourth section of the first Meditation. I have gone into the waste lonely places behind the eye. The lost acres at the edge of smoky cities. What's beyond never crumbles like an embankment, explodes like a

00:49:41.080 - 00:50:04.330

rose, or thrusts wings over the Caribbean. There are no pursuing forms, faces on walls. Only the motes of dust in the immaculate hallways, the darkness of falling hair, the warnings from lint and spiders, the vines graying to a fine powder. There

00:50:04.330 - 00:50:27.880

is no riven tree, or lamb dropped by an eagle. There are still times, morning and evening. The cerulean, high in the elm, thin and insistent as a cicada. In the far phoebe, singing the long, plaintive notes floating down, drifting

00:50:27.880 - 00:50:51.760

through the leaves, oak and maple. Or the whip-poor-will, along the smoky ridges, a single bird calling and calling. A fume reminds me, drifting across wet gravel. A cold wind comes over stones, a flame, intense, visible, plays over the dry

00:50:51.760 - 00:51:14.590

pods, runs fitfully along the stubble, moves over the field without burning. In such times, lacking a god, I am still happy. Morton Marcus: Joe, are there any other sections of Meditations you'd like to read?

00:51:14.620 - 00:51:22.600

Joseph Stroud: No, go ahead. We're running out of time, so– Morton Marcus: Well, we still got a lot to go and believe it or not. Wy don't you look for some stuff and Rosie– Joseph Stroud: I'm going to say a few words before the program

00:51:22.600 - 00:51:34.590

ends. Morton Marcus: Ok. Joseph Stroud: If that's okay? Morton Marcus: I mean, have you censored those words? Rosie?

00:51:36.610 - 00:51:44.310

Joseph Stroud: Why don't you read the read "The Rose?" Read "The Rose." Morton Marcus: Okay, well, I'm not going to read the whole poem, obviously. Okay.

00:51:54.550 - 00:52:15.580

Rosie King: Tell us the page. Morton Marcus: Okay, where are you? Well, here's a really fascinating section of "The Rose," which is part of this long sequence of "The Far Field," it's the end sequence.

00:52:15.580 - 00:52:31.810

And the sequence really comes from- it moves back and forth all over America and is really a long poem about the American continent, and is rooted there and makes him even more of an American poet. And this one part, he imitates, seems to be

00:52:31.810 - 00:52:51.280

imitating Whitman, but notice it's all sounds here. It really is just an amazing series of, again, long lines, very Whitman-esque, but you have to hear them. They're all oral images, as much as they are visual. This is SECTION THREE OF

00:52:51.310 - 00:53:14.200

THE ROSE, which he finds is his great symbol. It is in a cranny of rocks overlooking the Puget Sound. And it is right by the ocean, but it is where fresh water meets salt water, and the rose remains locked in that wall of stone, and that is the human

00:53:14.200 - 00:53:30.880

spirit continuing on and existing. Anyway, this is part three. What do they tell us? Sound and silence. I think of American sounds in the silence. On the banks of the tombstone, the wind

00:53:30.880 - 00:53:49.150

harps having their say, the thrush singing alone, that easy bird. The killdeer whistling away from me, the mimetic chortling of the catbird down in the corner of the garden, among the ragged lilacs, the bobolink skirring from a broken fence

00:53:49.150 - 00:54:08.890

post, the bluebird, lover of holes in old wood, lilting its light song. And that thin cry, like a needle piercing the ear, the insistent cicada. And the ticking of snow around oil drums in the Dakotas, the thin whine of telephone wires in the wind

00:54:08.890 - 00:54:26.440

of a Michigan winter. The shriek of nails as old shingles are ripped from the top of a roof. The bulldozer backing away, the hiss of the sandblaster and the deep chorus of horns coming up from the streets in early morning. I return to the

00:54:26.440 - 00:54:50.470

twittering of swallows above water and that sound, that single sound, when the mind remembers all and gently the light enters the sleeping soul. A sound so thin, it could not woo a bird, beautiful, my desire, and the place of my

00:54:50.470 - 00:55:03.970

desire. And he goes on to finally identify with this some, with this rose and this landscape where his life ended in the Northwest.

00:55:04.590 - 00:55:18.150

Joseph Stroud: What's interesting about those poems in "The Far Field" is that you see Roethke finally moving away from the hothouse world of his childhood, and his obsessions with that life, and beginning to move, you know, across the

00:55:18.150 - 00:55:33.270

continent, literally, of North America. If any criticism can be placed, there would be a lot of criticisms actually about Roethke, but one of the one you hear most often is that he never, ever addressed himself to social or political issues in

00:55:33.270 - 00:55:50.400

his poetry. And for many people, you know, they feel that you know, that he was cut short, he died when he's 55 years old. And in his last poem, you see him beginning at last to move out, to move away from himself and out into that, the continent,

00:55:50.400 - 00:56:01.710

into North America. Morton Marcus: But there are regressions continually in these poems, because it's important for him to to take a step forward, you take a step backward and so he continually

00:56:01.710 - 00:56:19.110

goes back to childhood images in this sequence, you know, in the greenhouse. Very, very interesting poet. The other thing about him, of course is there's hardly any urban poems here whatsoever, but that's very purposeful, because he found

00:56:19.170 - 00:56:38.370

meanings in minimal forms of life, the snail glistering him forward, and that was very, very important. He was, pure and simple, a nature poet and that is in no way an insult. I mean, he is the nature poet of nature poets. As you said, Joe, he

00:56:38.370 - 00:56:52.510

doesn't look from the outside, you know, he is part and parcel right there, so wonder these poems, Rosie. Rosie King: Well, I don't know where to go from here. Let's see.

00:57:01.690 - 00:57:12.440

Morton Marcus: You can say a few words, you know, and we'll call it a- Joseph Stroud: Well, there's not that much time left. I want to burst in here for a minute and say a few words. And it's not

00:57:12.440 - 00:57:28.820

about Theodore Roethke, it's about Morton Marcus. A lot of people don't know, but this is Morton's last show for the Poetry Show at Santa Cruz. He's been doing this show for over 20 years, he's my dear friend, and we're going to miss you very

00:57:28.820 - 00:57:37.160

much, Mort. Morton Marcus: Well, I'll still be here, Joe, we'll still smoke cigars together. Joseph Stroud: I know but this is your last Poetry Show. And I

00:57:37.160 - 00:57:56.510

know that everyone in the community looks forward to your shows. You bring so much life and energy and intelligence and knowledge of poetry, and there's not a lot of people around these days who know a lot about poetry in the way that you do. And, you

00:57:56.510 - 00:58:09.650

know, for over 20 years, you've been infusing your spirit, and the spirit of poetry into the community- Morton Marcus: You shouldn't have done this, Joe. Joseph Stroud: And we- I, for one, am deeply, deeply grateful.

00:58:10.310 - 00:58:22.490

Morton Marcus: Well, you know I love you and we started doing the show together and we did it for 10 years together. And they were just fantastic times. We did great shows together, we went all over the place and interviewed poets and-

00:58:22.970 - 00:58:37.190

Joseph Stroud: The best time of my life. Morton Marcus: Well, for the last 35 years, you've been the best time my life, buddy. Anyway, Rosie. Rosie King: I'm enormously grateful that we bumped into

00:58:37.190 - 00:58:50.840

each other that day at Bookshop Santa Cruz a few weeks back, and you asked if, you know, we could do a show together on Roethke and I said you got to have Joe on it if you're going to do it on Roethke.

00:58:51.740 - 00:59:04.520

Morton Marcus: I knew that was part of my plan. But you, now, are on your way within a week, back to Saginaw on to the big celebration- Rosie King: I am, well, it's the windup of the big celebration.

00:59:04.970 - 00:59:21.580

The celebration has been going on since last May 25th. And- Morton Marcus: Saginaw knows how to throw a party. Rosie King: Well, it's been doing it. Even Beatrice Roethke, now, Beatrice Roethke Lushington, and her husband,

00:59:22.750 - 00:59:43.540

Beatrice at age 83 and her husband at 92, came to Saginaw in November when there's a prize given every two years, every three years since Roethke died. It's called the Theodore Roethke Memorial Prize for Poetry. And this last year it was given to

00:59:43.540 - 01:00:04.960

Robert Pinsky, who was formerly Poet Laureate of the United States, and he came to Saginaw to read and they were there. So, there have been, you know, many celebrations and I'm just glad I can be part of the last part of it and very glad that I could be

01:00:04.960 - 01:00:17.630

here this evening with you, Mort. And with Joe Morton Marcus: Right. Now, it's been wonderful, thank you both. And I want to say to the people out there, it's been a great 24 years, but most important to me is that you keep listening to

01:00:17.630 - 01:00:33.560

poetry, you go out and read poetry. It is really where our spiritual life is as a nation, and as a civilization and if we lose this, if you lose what's going on in the poems and the poems we read tonight, then the decline of our culture is

01:00:33.560 - 01:01:10.500

inevitable. Thank you so much for listening in all these years, this is Mort Marcus, saying so long. This is Central Coast Public Radio, KUSP Santa Cruz and KBDH San Ardo, streaming live and podcasting at KUSP.org.