Customer Reviews:
 A Must-Have for Roethke Enthusiasts August 7, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The author writes about Roethke from the viewpoint of a colleague, fellow writer, and friend. Seager divides the book into 15 chapters: Roethke's Birthplace, Roethke's Family, Childhood, His Father's Death, College, The Beginnings of Poetry, Trouble, The First Book, The Lost Son and Other Poems, Working Methods, The West Coast, Marriage and the Pulitzer Prize, The Prizes, the Awards, and The last years.
Seager's Roethke emerges as a man of contradictions. Moreover, in many cases, says Seager, Roethke outright lied in order to forge himself ahead; yet the reader comes away with the suspicion that Roethke never really lied, that either he believed what he was saying was true or that it could have been true under the right circumstances.
Seager doesn't so much discuss Roethke's work as he sets the stage for how Roethke's work came to be and how he wrestled with what it means to be a poet. During the course of the book, Seager considers Roethke's birthplace, his time of birth, his family, his education, and, finally, Roethke's need to find his noblest self. The introduction by Donald Hall is both informative and revealing as well.
At the center of Seager's discussion of Roethke's poetry career is Roethke's mental illness which may have accounted for both the best and worst moments of Roethke's too short life.
This is a book for Roethke's fans, those who love authors and literature, and/or those who are writers. Writers, especially, will be intrigued, I think. Seager's handling of the subject matter is as grand as his subject.
Highly Recommended March 27, 2006
Ted Roethke springs to life from these pages-brilliant, astonishingly arrogant and hugely insecure. Seager links this combination to Roethke's father's death, but acknowledges a great deal of it was either innate or due to Ted having grown up as a sensitive boy in a very non-literary area of the world. Ted believed his poetry was consistently undervalued. Seager labels Ted as an "operator," by which he means that Ted strived in his poetry, not just to improve his skill, but also to bring it to the attention of poets who might critique it, publish it, review it, award him prizes for it, or otherwise be useful in his career. He worked tirelessly on improving his poetry and pushing the envelope OF poetry, while at the same time shamelessly promoting his own work and striving to become known as a poet. In between all this he suffered episodes of mania which led to various periods in institutions. A former co-worker of Roethke's, Seager paints an unforgettable portrait of the man behind the poems. A must-read for any Roethke acolyte.
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