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Theodore Roethke's Root Cellar

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Theodore Roethke’s poem Root Cellar was the inspiration for my poem Homecoming. Root Cellar by Theodore Roethke was one of his greenhouse poems, which he wrote during his youth while he spent time with his father in the large greenhouse they owned. I was captivated by his lyric poetry because of its strong rhythm and natural imagery. Theodore uses phonic repetition and alliteration to set the tone of the poem. I believed to that the succeeding images of death and decay, ws meant to give readers a sense of uneasiness and foreboding. I created Homecoming by rewriting Root Cellar and changing all of its original nouns and adjectives to ones of my own. By doing so I was able to create my one imagery and theme while preserving the ominous tone …show more content…

I knew that the poem needed revision because I didn’t know what to title it, which meant that I didn't really know what my own poem was about. After re-reading it I decided that it could help if I added another stanza that I could use to introduce a main character and a subtle tones of love. I also want more in depth with setting details and used metaphors/figurative language to convey the intense bond between the human main character and the inanimate subject. The poem is about a sick elderly woman that returns home to die peacefully in the place she is most comfortable, her childhood bedroom, where she experienced some of the most substantial experiences of her young life. I imagined that when she returned to the house, it was worn down and vacant because no one wanted to live there in the condition that it was in. I also imagined that she empathized with the house and her bedroom because it was as tired as she was. I wanted to convey the peace that she felt standing amongst the memories in the room and died tranquilly and then the room and house collapsed with her in it. As if it was waiting for hr to come home to give up life, thus I named the poem

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