Theodore Roethke, one of the greatest American poets of the 20th Century, will be honored at an event at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island Sept. 28.
The Pulitzer Prize winner died at Bloedel while swimming at the pool that is now the rock garden in 1963 while visiting Prentice and Virginia Bloedel. It is an important part of Pacific Northwest history as poets and writers from all over the world visit the site to pay their respects.
Tess Gallagher, a famous poet in her own right and a student of Roethke’s, will read at the event, along with other poets, to honor him. Gallagher is widely published and has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. Other poets include: Bainbridge Island poet Linda Bierds, a recently retired UW professor and winner of numerous prestigious awards; Pimone Triplett, a creativer writer professor at UW; and BI’s inaugural Poet Laureate Michele Bombardier.
Refreshments will be served in the Japanese Guest House following the reading. Tickets are $14 for Bloedel members and $40 for non-members. That includes entrance to Bloedel to tour the gardens before the event and post-event refreshments. The program takes place from 3-4:30 p.m. at the Japanese Guest House. Tickets are available at BloedelReserve.org.
The “Theodore Roethke and Bloedel Reserve: A Poet’s Place” commemoration continues Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 29 at 3 p.m. at the Bainbridge Public Library where Island Theatre will present a free play reading of “First Class” by late poet and Roethke student David Wagoner. Set in one of Roethke’s legendary poetry workshops, the 75-minute production features Island Theatre founder Steve Stolee as Roethke.
In his introduction to the play, Wagoner wrote: “Most of the teaching methods of artists in all categories have gone unrecorded. We know very little about what great painters and great composers, for instance, said to their pupils. In First Class I’ve tried to re-create the atmosphere of one of Roethke’s poetry workshops, working mostly from my memories of him and a number of examples of the kinds of poems and opinions he admired, some of the near rituals he used both on students and himself, some of his unique spirit, and some of the hectic ways Time and Place would leap over each other for him as if he were in charge of both.”
In the process, the audience is swept into not only the exhilarating milieu of Roethke’s classroom but also the terrible landscape of the mental illness that clouded most of his life, a news release says.
