[William A. Baurle]

Roethke was called a strong influence by so many poets after him that it'd be crazy for him not to be included. I'm choosing his first book because of the impact it made, and because, like Frost and Stevens, he waited quite a while before making his debut. But more importantly, at least for the Sphere, it contained so much good solid formal work, whereas in his later books he really began to go off into strange territories. I'll admit that I admire Roethke a great deal, but his poems have a certain coldness, or lofty detachment from the general rabble, and I don't warm to them nearly as much as I do to the work of Auden, Spender, or MacNeice. And I'll also admit that some of his more radical poems, of the later period, are completely unintelligble to me.