Book

Roethke, Theodore, 1908-1963.

Straw for the fire : from the notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63 / selected and arranged by David Wagoner.

2nd ed.

Port Townsend, Wash. : Copper Canyon Press, ©2006.

viii, 259 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

"Theodore Roethke died in 1963, leaving behind 277 spiral notebooks filled with poetry fragments, aphorisms, jokes, memos, journal entries, random phrases, bits of dialogue, quotes from other writers, commentary, and fugitive miscellany. Within these notebooks the Pulitzer prize-winner allowed his mind to rove freely, to play, plan, and experiment while moving from the practical to the transcendental, from the halting to the sublime. His friend, [fellow poet, and colleague] David Wagoner chose just twelve of these notebooks and distilled them into an energetic, wise, and rollicking collection that shows Roethke to be a truly phenomenal creative source in American poetry."--Back cover.

Roethke, Theodore, 1908-1963 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.

Notebooks.

Wagoner, David.

"A Lannan literary selection"--Page 4 of cover.

Straw for the fire In the lap of a dream A nest of light The loveless provinces All the semblance, all the loss The stony garden The wrath of other winds In the bush of her bones The dark angel Love has me haunted The dance of the one-legged man Father-stem and mother-root The root of the wind Heart, you have no house The middle of a roaring world I sing other wonders Recall this heaven's light She took my eyes The plain speech of a crow In the large mind of love The things I steal from sleep Between the soul and flesh The mire's my home The desolation My flesh learned to die And time slows down The thin cries of the spirit My instant of forever All my lights go dark The cat in the classroom The turn of the wheel The poet's business Words for young writers The proverbs of purgatory I teach out of love First class The right to say maybe The hammer's knowledge From Roethke to Goethe The teaching of poetry These exasperations A psychic janitor The beautiful disorder

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

2006019773

9781556592485

1556592485

9781556592485

70167612

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189304

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811 Roethke