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May 11, 2007
"What Falls Away is Always": Poetry Friday
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
-from "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke
I first encountered Roethke when I was about 20, right before my life got astonishingly busy for, oh, about a decade. I've always loved Roethke's aesthetic – simple, straight-forward, conversational. He talks about the kinds of things that resonate with me. "The Waking" has been on my mind particularly lately as I've been waking up around 6:00 but not getting out of bed until 6:45 or so. I seem to do best when I mosey along doing whatever I feel like doing, taking my time – apparently even when I wake up in the morning. My version of hell includes a lot of structured time. So this poem makes a lot of sense to me.
It's easy to think Roethke's moseying here, but this poem is a villanelle – not the most rigorous of forms, but still a challenge to pull off with the repeating lines. One could say he's being a cheater-pants because he swaps a word here and there, but I think it works. It's one of the ways he's forcing the reader to stop and think a little. He does this with punctuation, too. Notice how many full stops he's put in the middle of lines. He even used an exclamation point, which isn't exactly common in poetry. One thing I love throughout Roethke's work are his beautiful phrases – beautiful in their meaning, certainly, but even without. They're satisfying to read aloud. This is one of those poems I go and find every so often to read and puzzle over. I always find something new. Today, maybe a little peace.
[Roundup's over at HipWriterMama today.]
Posted by adrienne at May 11, 2007 11:14 AM
Comments
I like this one a lot.
Posted by: chuck at May 11, 2007 04:57 PM
Ooh, yes! Yesyesyes! I love Roethke, and for exactly the reasons you describe. Great choice - thanks!
Posted by: eisha at May 11, 2007 10:12 PM
Wow. That's powerful.
Posted by: Little Willow at May 13, 2007 02:40 AM
"The Waking" is like "The Sloth" because both poems talk about going slow and this makes us happy!
Posted by: Ms. T's English class at September 15, 2009 09:38 AM
Oh, boy, me too.
Posted by: adrienne at September 15, 2009 11:41 AM