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I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.

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
Disorder
Eternal
Poetry
Words
Beautiful
Virginity
Overwhelmed

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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By daily dying, I have come to be.
Theodore Roethke
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Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still calledThe flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollowsAnd love, love sang toward.
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.
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You must believe: a poem is a holy thing - a good poem, that is. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.
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I came where the river Ran over stones My ears knew An early joy. And all the waters Of all the streams Sang in my veins That summer day.
Theodore Roethke
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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
Theodore Roethke
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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
Theodore Roethke
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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
Theodore Roethke
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I came to love, I came into my own.
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
Theodore Roethke
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In a dark time, the eye begins to see / I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
Theodore Roethke
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What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
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How terrible the need for God.
Theodore Roethke
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The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
Theodore Roethke
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All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.
Theodore Roethke
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
Theodore Roethke
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The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
Theodore Roethke