Otto roethke biography

Theodore roethke education

Theodore Roethke, recognized by many as one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, taught at the University of Washington from until his death in There, he inspired a generation of poets, including Richard Hugo and many others who would become well-known. Afflicted with bouts of an undiagnosed mental illness but also possessed of a lust for life, Roethke produced a large and diverse body of works, such as "The Lost Son" and "Praise to the End.

Otto and his brother Charles ran a huge set of greenhouses established by their father, Wilhelm, a German immigrant. Roethke's homelife was tranquil, according to all accounts, although he was thin and serious and suffered from many childhood ailments. Young Roethke spent many hours in the greenhouses, following and helping his father in his work.

He weeded greenhouse beds and gathered moss in the tract of original forest on the family property. He also roamed the game sanctuary that the family maintained, "a wild area of cut-over second-growth timber," as he described it in a BBC interview. One favorite place was a swampy corner of the game sanctuary where herons always nested" Seager, Images from the greenhouse and nature crop up frequently in his later poetry.

Roethke began writing early.