SOURCE: "Theodore Roethke Speaks: The Teaching Poet," in New Letters, Vol. 49, No. 1, Fall, 1982, pp. 7-25.

The following is a transcript of a spoken address. Roethke discusses such topics as teaching, his literary influences, the role of readers, and the poetic process. In the absence of further information regarding the date of composition, the year of Roethke's death has been substituted for the essay date.

The Teaching Poet

I think teaching is one of the last resorts of the noble mind and is a whole, a profession, and in our times one of the ones that's least corrupted. It is a second order of creation, particularly visceral, romantic teaching of the sort that I go in for. Since I don't know anything, I have to use, make up for, energy, noise, and general pandemonium. It can get cumulative, and one can get this collective excitement going, and that's very...