He was awarded many awards for his achievements and was very successful in life, but Theodore Roethke lived a life of heavy drinking and manic depression. How does a person live like this?
             Theodore Roethke was born on May 25, 1908 in Saginaw, Michigan. His parents were both immigrants from Germany, but they did not know each other before the came to America. They met in Saginaw, Michigan (Theodore, 1). Roethke's father came to America as a child with his father. In order to make money the Roethkes bought twenty-two acres of land to build a market garden on. When Roethke's grandfather made enough money he built a greenhouse so the family could enter the florist business. After his grandfather died Roethke's father and uncle took over the business. When he was two years old his father built a house next to the green house so he would be close to take care of the flowers (Tapia,1). Throughout his childhood he found it difficult to relate to others (Bowler, 912). Roethke would follow his father around the greenhouse as he took
             care of it, and was given small chores of his own. Past the greenhouse was a large field where Roethke played as a child. The greenhouse and the large field were major influences as shown in much of his writing (Tapia, 1).
             Roethke went to Arthur Hill High School in 1921. During his freshmen year he wrote a speech addressing the Saginaw chapter of the Red Cross. It was so successful that it was translated into twenty-six different languages and received international attention (Theodore, 1). When Roethke was a sophomore at high school his father died of cancer. He accepted his father's death easily because his father was very ill long before his death. Roethke's poetry told a different story though, his suggested that his father's death had a deep and lasting affect on him. His father was a major influence on his writing as seen in "My Papa's Waltz", one of
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