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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.

Theodore Roethke

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Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Poet
Rather
Heart
Would

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swamplandDisturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,By pulling off flesh from the living planetAs if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
Theodore Roethke
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
Theodore Roethke
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And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,Will turn its private substance into green,And young shoots spread upon our inner world.
Theodore Roethke
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
Theodore Roethke
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Fear was my father, Father Fear. His look drained the stones.
Theodore Roethke
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Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm! The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil All things unholy, marred by curse, The ugly of the universe.
Theodore Roethke
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The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
Theodore Roethke
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A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominableYet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,The burning lake turns into a forest pool,The fire subsides into rings of water,A sunlit silence.
Theodore Roethke
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But when I breath with the birds, The spirit of wrath becomes the spirit of blessings, And the dead begin from their dark to sing in my sleep.
Theodore Roethke
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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
Theodore Roethke
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What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
Theodore Roethke
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Let others probe the mystery if they can.Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will -The right thing happens to the happy man.
Theodore Roethke
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And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
Theodore Roethke
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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Theodore Roethke
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
Theodore Roethke
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
Theodore Roethke
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A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
Theodore Roethke
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I came to love, I came into my own.
Theodore Roethke
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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
Theodore Roethke