The Far Field (1964). Content and Description

This poem is another extended meditation, written in four separate sections, and is the title poem of the last and posthumously published collection of poems by Roethke. It is the story of a long and complex life’s journey, and it shows a gifted poet at the height of his powers. We are told that the poem is about journeys in the first line: “I dream of journeys repeatedly” (l. 1). Just what those journeys are, we are left to interpret, but the concluding lines of the first section probably refer to the progression from old age to death since we are provided with an image of a stalled car “churning in a snowdrift / Until the headlights darken” (ll. 11-12).

The second section of the poem is set in the speaker’s youth, and the majority of images in this section are from the fields the speaker haunted as a boy. He speaks of the “nesting place of the field mouse” and of “the shrunken face of a dead rat.” This section is not, however, a mere litany of images. We are given important information about the early part of the speaker’s life journey, particularly when he claims that it was by closely observing the natural world that “one learned of the eternal” and further that he “learned not to fear infinity.”

The transformations that he observed in the field, the life and also the death, taught him that the process of living was inevitably bound up with the process of dying. In the third section, the speaker speaks of growing older, noting that he feels “a weightless change, a moving forward” as if he is recognizing the passage of time. The chief metaphor in this section is a river, which symbolizes the inevitable passing of time. At the end of this section, Roethke again returns to the idea of not fearing death.

The speaker at one point says, “I am renewed by death” and takes comfort in the fact that what he loves “is near at hand/Always, in earth and air.” The fourth and final section extends and complicates the river/water metaphor. The speaker speaks of the sea as perhaps the final destination, noting, “The lost self changes, / Turning toward the sea,” and there is an impression that the speaker is in the very last stages of his life and is thinking about what lies beyond.

This is supported by the poem’s conclusion, when the speaker tells us, “All finite things reveal infinitude” and when he ends with another image of water: “Silence of water above a sunken tree: / The pure serene of memory in one man,— / A ripple widening from a single stone / Winding around the waters of the world.” Roethke’s use of the image of a stone being thrown into water and the ripples that emanate from it symbolizes both a single human life and that life’s connectedness to all that it contacts. It is Roethke’s final statement on the importance of recognizing our place within the fabric of existence.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. There are many images of water in this poem, particularly in its latter half. Make a list of all of the different things that water can symbolize. Which ones do you think were utmost in Roethke’s mind when he was writing this poem and why?

2. Reflect upon your own life’s journey. What do you feel about your life so far, and what do you feel when you think about your own future? How does the speaker in the poem seem to feel about his own journey?

3. Examine the animal imagery in the second section. Many of the images are of destruction or decay. What does the speaker seem to have learned from these images? How does he apply those lessons later in the poem?

Works Cited and Additional Resources:
“The Academy of American Poets—Theodore Roethke.” www.poets.org. Available online. URL: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/13. Accessed November 26, 2006.

Balakian, Peter. Theodore Roethke’s Far Fields: The Evolution of His Poetry. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.

Beaman, Darlene. “Roethke’s Travels: An Overview of His Poetry.” Green River Review 14, no. 2 (1983): 79-90.

Blessing, Richard. “The Shaking That Steadies: Theodore Roethke’s ‘The Waking.’” Ball State University Forum 12, no. 4 (1971): 17-19.

Bogen, Don. “From Open House to the Greenhouse: Theodore Roethke’s Poetic Breakthrough.” ELH 47, no. 2 (Summer 1980): 399-418.