Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database

• Art

  • Annotations
  • Artists
  • Meet the Artist
  • Viewing Room *
  • Annotated Art Books
  • Art in Literature

• Literature

  • Annotations
  • Authors
  • Meet the Authors *
  • Listening Room *
  • Reading Room *

• Performing Arts

  • Film/Video/TV Annotations
  • Screening Room *
  • Theater *

• Editors' Choices

  • Choices
  • Editor's Biosketch
  • Indexes
  • Book Order Form

• Search

  • Annotation Search
  • People Search
  • Keyword (Topic)
  • Annotator
  • Free Text Search

Literature Annotations

Roethke, Theodore The Waking

	On-Line Text
Genre	Poem
Keywords	Aging, Death and Dying, Nature, Religion, Time
Summary	The poet characterizes, with the tranquility and rhythm of a lullaby, his drifting states of sleep and awareness: "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow," also hinting at his knowledge and acceptance of impending death. He seems to become one with Nature and the unknowable, ending the poem with a sense of peace and resolution: "I learn by going where I have to go."
Source	The Waking
Publisher	Doubleday
Edition	1953
Place Published	New York
Alternate Source	The Treasury of American Poetry
Alternate Publisher	Dorset
Alternate Edition	1990
Alternate Editors	Nancy Sullivan
Place Published	New York
Miscellaneous	An earlier poem with the same title was published in 1948.
Annotated by	Aull, Felice and Chen, Irene
Date of Entry	11/15/93
Last Revised	01/09/07