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Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) was a major twentieth-century American poet whose work was chiefly preoccupied with the self. Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Roethke grew up with a strict German immigrant father who, like his own father, kept an enormous greenhouse for a living. The greenhouses of Roethke’s youth proved deeply influential for his artistic development. He spent much of his career as a poet investigating the minute details of the natural world, and he was particularly fascinated by botanical growth. The midwestern landscapes of Roethke’s youth also played a major role in what he later called his “schooling of the spirit.” Landscape and the self came together most strikingly in the poems of his second collection, The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948), the material for which he mined from his own childhood experiences.

Some critics have diminished Roethke’s importance as a poet due to the deeply introspective nature of his work. Others, however, have steadfastly upheld his reputation as among the very best American poets of the century. Roethke struggled with bipolar disorder throughout his life, and as the demands of his writing and his teaching mounted, his health deteriorated, leading him to an early death at the age of 55.

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