“Roethke was an extraordinarily rigorous critic, and if you couldn’t take it, you didn’t learn much. For example, he said the real test was that every line of a poem should be a poem. That’s about as tough as you can get,” writes poet Carolyn Kizer about her former writing teacher and mentor in the foreword to this volume of selected prose and journal entries. Roethke, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for his poetry collection The Waking, taught at various colleges and universities and was a mentor to a generation of Northwest poets that included Kizer, Tess Gallagher, Richard Hugo, and David Wagoner. Compiled from two previous volumes of Roethke’s prose notebooks, this four-part volume includes essays on identity, lessons on rhythm, the teaching of poetry, critical analyses of the works of Dylan Thomas and Louise Bogan, and advice for young writers. This rare collection of essays reintroduces Roethke to a new generation of poets seeking instruction from an acclaimed and influential poet and teacher.
