{"id":1421,"date":"2013-03-02T15:46:16","date_gmt":"2013-03-02T23:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/?page_id=1421"},"modified":"2013-08-01T16:26:06","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T00:26:06","slug":"carverroethke","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/kathleenflenniken.com\/blog\/?page_id=1421","title":{"rendered":"Carver\/Roethke"},"content":{"rendered":"

JOIN THE CELEBRATION!
\n<\/strong>Raymond Carver\u2019s 75th<\/sup> Birthday Event<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Scroll below the biographies of these two esteemed Washington State poets, Raymond Carver and Theodore Roethke, to find downloadable poems that allow you to take part in the celebration too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A downloadable poster for you to help publicize your Carver\/Roethke event<\/p><\/div>\n

Tess Gallagher and Peninsula College have joined forces to present several weeks of celebration, readings and workshops in Port Angeles during the month of May, 2013, culminating in A Rouse for Ray on his birthday, May 25.<\/p>\n

Details about the Port Angeles event are listed at: www.pencol.edu\/events\/all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Your group can join in the celebration<\/strong> by holding a reading of your own during the months of May or June. May 25th<\/sup> is also the birthday of Northwest poet Theodore Roethke, born in 1908, one of the first and best teachers of Carver\u2019s widow and fellow writer, Tess Gallagher.\u00a0 Each year, Friends of Theodore Roethke hold a birthday celebration in his birthplace, Saginaw, Michigan. You can view those events at: http:\/\/www.roethkehouse.org\/index.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under the sponsorship of Tess Gallagher, Peninsula College, and Poet Laureate, Kathleen Flenniken, you are invited to design and give your own reading, celebrating these two great Washington voices of poetry:\u00a0 Raymond Carver and Theodore Roethke.<\/p>\n

Who<\/strong>:\u00a0 All groups across Washington are invited to design and hold a Carver\/Roethke reading.\u00a0 These groups include: \u00a0libraries; book groups; poetry venues and series; elementary, high school and college classrooms; individuals meeting in their homes.<\/p>\n

What<\/strong>:\u00a0 Present a reading for a wider, invited audience or just for yourselves during the months of May and June.\u00a0 Use the paired poems listed below, or choose your own poems from the poets\u2019 collected works:\u00a0 The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke<\/em> (Doubleday, 1975); All of Us: The Collected Poems Raymond Carver <\/em>(Vintage, 2000).<\/p>\n

When and Where<\/strong>:\u00a0 anytime during the months of May and June, 2013, anywhere in Washington.<\/p>\n

How<\/strong>:\u00a0 Any group, no matter how loosely formed, can participate.\u00a0 Simply design and hold your reading.\u00a0 Please send information about your reading to Alice Derry at AliceDerry@wavecable.com<\/a>, and she will get it posted to this web page and at the Raymond Carver celebration web site at Peninsula College in Port Angeles.<\/p>\n

Questions and help<\/strong>:\u00a0 Poet Alice Derry, Gallagher\u2019s friend and neighbor, can answer questions or give additional help at the above email.<\/p>\n

THE POETS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Raymond Carver<\/strong> was born on May 25, 1938, in Clatskanie, Oregon, but raised in Yakima, the son of a saw-mill worker and a waitress.\u00a0 Although his writing and teaching took him throughout the U.S., his subject matter is tied to the state where he grew up.\u00a0 \u00a0He wrote, fished and lived\u00a0much of the last ten years of his life\u00a0in\u00a0Port Angeles with poet, essayist and short story writer, Tess Gallagher, who eventually became his wife.\u00a0 Esteemed as one of the greatest American short stories writers, \u201cthe American Chekhov,\u201d Carver was also a poet of great stature.\u00a0 His first published piece and his last book, A New Path to the Waterfall<\/em>, were poems. In 1983 he received the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award.\u00a0 He died in 1988 at the age of 50\u00a0and is buried in Ocean View Cemetery near Port Angeles. His collected poems, All of Us<\/em>, was published after his death, in 1996 with an introduction by Tess Gallagher.<\/p>\n

Theodore Roethke<\/strong>\u00a0was born on May 25, 1908, in Saginaw, Michigan.\u00a0 Roethke is one of the most respected of American poets.\u00a0 Over the course of his career he garnered many prizes for his poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1953; two National Book Awards; and the Bollingen Prize.\u00a0 Roethke started writing in the Michigan of his birth, and many of his poems take their inspiration from his father\u2019s greenhouse and love of plants.\u00a0 In 1947, however, he began teaching at the University of Washington.\u00a0 Much of\u00a0The Far Field<\/em>, containing his great, later poems, was inspired by our coastal landscapes.\u00a0 Among the brightest students in the last class he taught in 1963 at the university, was Tess Gallagher, who would later become the\u00a0widow of Raymond Carver and an\u00a0esteemed writer herself.\u00a0 Roethke died that same year.\u00a0 Learn more about Roethke at the web site noted above.<\/p>\n

POEM PAIRS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider presenting poems in pairs as suggested below:<\/p>\n

Carver<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Roethke<\/span><\/p>\n

My Father in his Twenty-Second Year, page 7 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Otto, page 216<\/p>\n

Wind, page 187 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Mid-Country Blow, page 11<\/p>\n

Your Dog Dies, page 6 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014The Geranium, page 220<\/p>\n

Sleeping, page 190 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014The Waking, page 104<\/p>\n

The Best Time, page 191 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014Wish for a Young Wife, page 210<\/p>\n

Where Water Comes Together With Other Water, page 63 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Section 3 of The Far Field, page 194<\/p>\n

The River, page 190 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014The Meadow, page 202<\/p>\n

The Trestle, page 136 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014Otto, page 216<\/p>\n

A Poem Not Against Songbirds, page 13 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014No Bird, page 16<\/p>\n

A Walk, page 88 or Kafka\u2019s Watch, page 182 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Night Journey, page 32<\/p>\n

A Forge, and a Scythe, page 97 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014last two parts of The Dream, page 114<\/p>\n

A Poem Not Against Songbirds, page 133 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Siskins, page 146<\/p>\n

Distress Sale, page 5 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014Sale, page 30<\/p>\n

The White Field, page 209 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014Section 2 of The Far Field, page 193<\/p>\n

Click on the poem titles below to view and download PDFs.<\/strong>
\nRaymond Carver’s poems are from\u00a0All of Us: Collected Poems<\/em>\u00a0(copyright 1996, Tess Gallagher).
\nPermission for use of work from the\u00a0Collected Poems of \u00a0Theodore Roethke<\/em>\u00a0by Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc. New York, 1975.<\/p>\n

The River and The Meadow<\/a><\/p>\n

A Walk and Night Journey<\/a><\/p>\n

Woolworth’s<\/a><\/p>\n

You Don’t Know What Love Is<\/a><\/p>\n

Your Dog Dies and The Geranium<\/a><\/p>\n

My Father and Otto<\/a><\/p>\n

Not Against Songbirds and No Bird<\/a><\/p>\n

Not Against Songbirds and Siskins<\/a><\/p>\n

Shiftless, Simple, Money<\/a><\/p>\n

Sleeping and The Waking<\/a><\/p>\n

The Car, Fear, Sleeping<\/a><\/p>\n

The Pen and NyQuil<\/a><\/p>\n

The Trestle and Otto<\/a><\/p>\n

The White Field and The Far Field, Sect 2<\/a><\/p>\n

Where Water Comes Together and The Far Field, Sect 3<\/a><\/p>\n

A Forge and a Scythe and The Dream<\/a><\/p>\n

Dinky<\/a><\/p>\n

Distress Sale and Sale<\/a><\/p>\n

Kafka’s Watch and Night Journey<\/a><\/p>\n

Wind and Mid-Country Blow<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Time and Young Wife<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Favorite Poem<\/strong>s<\/strong><\/p>\n

You could also organize your reading around \u201cfavorite poems\u201d as chosen by Tess Gallagher.<\/p>\n

For Carver<\/span>:\u00a0 Hummingbird, 278; Gravy, 292; For Tess, 138; Jean’s TV, 155; The Mail, 148; The Cobweb, 145; Asia, 222; In A Marine Light Near Sequim, Washington, 130; A Haircut, 127; Cherish, 292; Proposal, 290; What the Doctor Said, 289; The Gift, 223; Simple, 215; The Pen, 198; Shiftless,175; Earwigs, 172; Nyquil, 173; Money, 78; Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In,73; Woolworth’s, 1954, 53; You Don’t Know What Love Is, 16.<\/p>\n

Alice\u2019s choices for Carver<\/span>:\u00a0 The Best Time of Day, 191; The River, 190; Earwigs, 172; The Gift, 223; Grief, 106; Harley\u2019s Swans, 107; Happiness, 65; Two Worlds, 230; Caution, 260; No Need, 293.<\/p>\n

Tess\u2019 and Alice\u2019s choices for Roethke<\/span>:\u00a0 Elegy for Jane, 98; The Bat, 15; My Papa\u2019s Waltz, 43; North American Sequence, 181ff.; Root Cellar, 36; Moss-Gathering, 38; Child on Top of the Greenhouse, 40; Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt and Frau Schwartz, 42; Elegy, 215; I Knew A Woman, 122; Meditation at Oyster River, 184; Journey to the Interior, 187; The Far Field, 193; The Rose, 196; In a Dark Time, 231.<\/p>\n

For High School Students<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tess Gallagher recommends the following Carver poems for high school students:<\/p>\n

Shiftless,175(does have reference to smoking); Woolworth’s, 1954, 53; Money,78; Simple, 215; The Pen, 198; NyQuil,173; You Don’t Know What Love Is, 16; The Car, 151; Fear, 60; Sleeping, 190.<\/p>\n

She recalls how two of her students at Whitman did a combined shout out of “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and \u201cI have never forgotten how good that is. You might suggest this: two students pairing off and taking different lines of that poem and performing it orally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering \u201cSleeping\u201d and \u201cThe Waking\u201d:\u00a0 a lesson outline from Alice<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Roethke is altogether a more formal poet than Carver, and \u201cThe Waking,\u201d one of the best villanelles in English, is one of his most formal poems. (Villanelle:\u00a0 French, song-like form, in three-line stanzas and a closing four-line stanza with two refrain lines, repeated in the pattern shown in Roethke\u2019s poem.)\u00a0 Carver, on the other hand, is the master of the colloquial, using the average speech patterns of the average person and turning them into poetry (condensed, intense, with many implied meanings).\u00a0 \u201cSleeping\u201d is more formal than many Carver poems, making use of cataloguing, as well as rhetorical repetition.\u00a0 Lines beginning with:\u00a0 He slept, On, Slept,<\/em> In<\/em> alternate throughout the poem.\u00a0 When death enters the poem, the repetitive pattern abruptly changes.<\/p>\n

In teaching poems to students, I like to begin by reading the poems aloud to them.\u00a0 A practiced reader can help people understand a poem just by reading well.\u00a0 My reading also puts me on the line, instead of them.\u00a0 Then I ask for student volunteers to read the poems, so that we will have the advantage of hearing the poems several times, a necessity for understanding\/experiencing most poems.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice to feel the poems in different voices as well.\u00a0 Next, I ask if there are any words, phrases or references students do not understand.\u00a0 Since poems often pivot on the meaning of a single word, it\u2019s important to make sure every unclear word is explained.\u00a0 I do not use this time to \u201cthrow back\u201d questions to students (Well, what do you think it means?) but answer as factually and clearly as I can any question asked.\u00a0 This helps build courage to face what a poem \u201cmeans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, I open discussion on what the poems are saying to students.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to remember that a poem, while it doesn\u2019t mean \u201cjust anything\u201d or \u201cwhatever the reader wants it to mean\u201d has a wide range of meanings in the net it casts.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned a great deal about poems by listening carefully to what my students offer, most of whom have read far less poetry than I have.\u00a0 The offering of many minds is very important to poetry.\u00a0 Within reason, I accept everything offered.\u00a0 If I feel a student is reading his\/her own life into a poem or inventing something, I might ask, \u201cWhat line gave you that feeling?\u201d\u00a0 or \u201cHow do the poem\u2019s details \u2018prove\u2019 that?\u201d\u00a0 If students don\u2019t self-correct, I will suggest that that interpretation is not borne out by the poem\u2019s details.\u00a0 Generally, other students do all this correcting, and I don\u2019t have to.\u00a0 Gradually what the poem represents, or extends out to us, or invites us to believe, or questions us about, emerges.\u00a0 Let the process be long and extensive.\u00a0 Don\u2019t rush.\u00a0 Let silence fall, out of which another thought emerges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Waking\u201d is not an easy poem.\u00a0 There are lines I still don\u2019t really \u201cunderstand,\u201d but I like them anyway, for their words or sounds.\u00a0 But the \u201cgist\u201d is not difficult:\u00a0 life is full of mystery, and we learn by going where we have to go (with the emphasis on have) because of our background, our personality, our parents, our children, our job, our loves, etc.<\/p>\n

Like many Carver poems, \u201cSleeping\u201d is deceptively accessible.\u00a0 When one considers all the places the speaker sleeps, though, a life is being told, not unlike \u201cwhere we have to go.\u201d\u00a0 In addition, sleep itself and its eerie resemblance to death, are subjects of the poem.\u00a0 Sleep enables the body and mind to be awake and alive; it also takes up a good deal of our lives.\u00a0 While sleep can feel like a blessing and insomnia a curse, many people fight sleep at night because they are afraid, like Hamlet, of \u201cwhat dreams may come\u201d, or they fear the dark.\u00a0 Small children famously do not want to fall asleep, give way, give up, give in.\u00a0 After a loved one dies, sleep is often impossible, and waking after sleep often means experiencing the loss all over again.<\/p>\n

Once some of these ideas surface, you can direct students to thinking about how the poems are similar and how they are different.\u00a0 You can then turn to the use of sound, a major force in \u201cThe Waking\u201d and subtly important in \u201cSleeping.\u201d\u00a0 You can talk about rhyme and absence of rhyme.\u00a0 You can talk about more formal speech versus more informal.\u00a0 You can talk about \u201cthe beat\u201d in each poem.<\/p>\n

At the end, I always ask students, \u201cWas reading these poems worth your time?\u201d\u00a0 I accept the answer \u201cno\u201d without question. \u00a0But as students discuss the worth of a poem, more about its meaning emerges.\u00a0 During this part of the discussion, I accept whatever surfaces. How we feel about art, after all, is a matter of taste, and the only way to develop a sense of taste is to honestly admit what appeals to us and what doesn\u2019t, at the same time \u201cdefending\u201d those choices.\u00a0 While I might try to draw students further in their thinking, I listen carefully to their choices.\u00a0 A comment to students like, \u201cWell, you just don\u2019t understand good literature,\u201d or even a tone which says this, will kill all further interest in poetry.<\/p>\n

For Elementary Students<\/strong><\/p>\n

Theodore Roethke has a number of poems written specifically for children.\u00a0 These can be found in the collected poems, beginning on page 107.<\/p>\n

Song for the Squeezebox<\/p>\n