Theodore Roethke and Bloedel Reserve: A Poet’s Place
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WA – The Bainbridge Island Poet Laureate Program and Bloedel Reserve invite the community to an afternoon of poetry featuring Tess Gallagher, Linda Bierds, Pimone Triplett, and Michele Bombardier in commemoration of renowned northwest poet Theodore Roethke and his connection to Bloedel Reserve. Refreshments will be served in the Japanese Guest House following the reading. Tickets - $14 for Bloedel members and $40 for non-members – include entrance to the Bloedel for a chance 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 commemoration continues that evening at 7 p.m. and on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Bainbridge Public Library where Island Theatre presents a play reading of First Class, by the late poet and Roethke student David Wagoner, that recreates one of Roethke’s legendary U.W. poetry workshops.
DETAILS: Theodore Roethke and Bloedel Reserve: A Poet’s Place
Theodore Roethke is recognized as one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century. That Roethke died while swimming in the pool (now the rock garden) at the Bloedel Reserve during a 1963 visit with Prentice and Virginia Bloedel is an important part of Pacific Northwest history; the site is visited by poets and writers from all over the world. Roethke, who won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, produced a body of work and a teaching legacy that continues to influence poets today. His students include David Wagoner, Richard Hugo, Carolyn Kizer, Jack Gilbert, Tess Gallagher, and other luminary poets.
Featured poets at the event are:
Tess Gallagher, possibly Roethke’s only still-living student, is a widely published and esteemed poet with numerous awards for her work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Maxine Cushing Gray Foundation Award.
Bainbridge Island poet, Linda Bierds, is a recently retired U.W. Creative Writing professor whose honors and awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Poetry Society of America, and the MacArthur Foundation. She has received the PEN/West Poetry Prize, the Washington State Governor’s Writers Award, the Consuelo Ford Award from the Poetry Society of America, and four Pushcart Prizes.
Pimone Triplett, a finalist in Narrative journal's Fifteenth Annual Poetry Contest, is the author of four poetry collections and a professor of creative writing at the University of Washington's MFA program.
Bainbridge Island's inaugural Poet Laureate, Michele Bombarider, is the winner of the 2024 New Ohio Review Prize. Her poetry and reviews can be found in over a hundred literary journals and her poetry collection, What We Do, was a finalist for the Washington Book Award. She holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University and has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Mineral School, and the Tyrone Centre.
Image: Theodore Roethke Sitting in an Armchair and Holding a Drink. Used with permission from the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, UW2909.
More about Theodore Roethke:
Remarkable People - Theodore Roethke. Seattle Colleges Cable Television. 2017. 30 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edfly5jPb80.
Poet Theodore Roethke dies on August 1, 1963. By Kate Kershner Posted 11/25/2017. HistoryLink.org Essay 1642. https://historylink.org/File/1642.