2024 Virtual Speaker Series
A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke
About the series
A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke (edited by William Barillas and published by Ohio University Press in 2021) is a constellation of essays that reanimates the work of Theodore Roethke for a new century. In this series, four of the contributors will discuss the poem they wrote about in the book while sharing their individual perspectives on Roethke’s life, work, and legacy.
About this session
Poet Don Bogen speaks of “First Meditation,” the first of Roethke’s late “Meditations of an Old Woman,” a poetic sequence concerned with “the essential entropy of nature . . . the unstoppable process of aging,” and ways in which “memory might be a response to spiritual inertia.” The speaker of this poem was inspired in part by Roethke’s mother, Helen Huebner Roethke (1881-1955) of Saginaw. The presentation will conclude with time for audience questions and conversation.
About Don Bogen
Don Bogen is the author of five books of poetry (most recently Immediate Song, published in 2019 by Milkweed Editions), a critical book on Theodore Roethke, and a translation of selected poems from the contemporary Spanish poet Julio Martínez Mesanza. He has also collaborated with composers. He is the recipient of a Discovery Award; Fulbright positions in Spain and at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry of Queen’s University, Belfast; and fellowships from the Camargo Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. An emeritus professor at the University of Cincinnati, he serves as editor-at-large for The Cincinnati Review.
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