An important author during this modern time period was Theodore Roethke. "Roethke grew up in the midst of fecundities" (Baird 1772). His father was a prominent figure in his life. "He was only fourteen when his father died in 1922, dealing his son a wound and sense of unfullfillment that Roethke was able to relieve only near the end of his life" (Baird 1776). "His ambivalent relationship with is father was strong" (The Short Story 763). Roethke would later incorporate his life into his writings. "Roethke's childhood was an early experience that would impact his future writing" (Brinnin 631). "Roethke's experiences in the natural environment of his fathers greenhouses as a them" (Baird 1775).
As an adult, Roethke taught English. "Teaching English farther aided in the development of his writing" (The Short Story 763). The stryle of writing centered upon the aspects of the rest of the world around him. "His innovation of more recent poetic tradition showed that he was aware of the problems of his own time and his use of poetry to grapple with his own emotional and psychic distress reaffirms the role of poetry as a regenerative and healing agent" (Baird 1782). His writings reflect the time period. "Roethke seems to fling his humanity defiantly in the face of all hours leering out from contemporary life" (The Age of Uncertainty 1940).
"Roethke uses the contemporary attitude that engulfs the society he lives in to create a them for his writing" (The Age of Uncertainty 1941). Roethke also incorporated his feelings about his father into his writing. "Subconsciously, he believed that he had a debt to his father, which he had to repay" (Baird 1783). "The feelings Roethke had were expressed in the poems after his fathers death as he attempts to recreated the subjective essence of his coming of age in all of its vivid imagery" (The Short Story 1763). It seems that Roethke was searching for something.