西奥多·罗特克（Theodore Roethke，1908—1963）出生于密歇根州萨吉诺。当他还是个孩子的时候，他花了很多时间在他父亲和叔叔拥有的温室里。他对那里的自然世界的印象后来深刻地影响了他诗歌的主题和意象。罗特克1929年以优异成绩从密歇根大学毕业。后来，他在密歇根大学和哈佛大学上了几门研究生课程，但在学校里并不快乐。他的第一本书《开放之家》（Open House，1941）花了10年时间写成，一经出版便广受好评。他后来很少发表作品，但他的声誉随着每一部新作品的问世而提高，包括1954年获得普利策奖的《觉醒》（The waking）。
Theodore Roethke hardly fits anyone’s image of the stereotypical high-minded poet-intellectual of the 1940s through 1960s. Born in Saginaw, Michigan, his father was a German immigrant who owned and ran a 25-acre greenhouse. Though as a child he read a great deal and as a high school freshman he had a Red Cross campaign speech translated into 26 languages, he suffered from issues of abandonment and loss, and his lack of self-esteem led him to strive to be accepted by peers. When he was 14, his father died of cancer and his uncle committed suicide. He attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he adopted a tough, bear-like image (weighing over 225 pounds) and even developed a fascination with gangsters. Eccentric and nonconformist—he later called himself “odious” and “unhappy”—Roethke yearned for a friend with whom he could talk and relate his ambitions. Poet and writer James Dickey once named Roethke the greatest of all American poets: “I don't see anyone else that has the kind of deep, gut vitality that Roethke's got. Whitman was a great poet, but he's no competition for Roethke.” His difficult childhood, his bouts with bipolar disorder, and his ceaseless search for truth through his poetry writing led to a difficult life, but also helped to produce a remarkable body of work that would influence future generations of American poets to pursue the mysteries of one’s inner self.