Laura Russell writes,

The poem under examination can be found here: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15806

Theodore Roethke (1908 – 1963) was a prize-winning American poet, and his poem “The Storm” serves as an excellent example of his talent. The basic structure of this poem is fairly simple. It is divided into three parts: the first begins with detached images of the approaching storm; the second part extends these images and introduces a first person perspective; the third stanza chronicles the violence of the storm through this perspective. Roethke employs a plethora of poetic tools; the most prominent are grammatical structure, imagery, and sound.

The punctuation and syntax of this poem are remarkably precise. The first twenty-eight lines of the poem, barring two short lines, are composed of three extended sentences. Roethke primarily punctuates his lines with commas, creating a fluid progression of ideas; when he does use a semicolon, it generally indicates that he is moving forward to a new image. He also skillfully omits certain words when it suits his purpose. In the first two lines, he writes “Against the stone breakwater,/Only an ominous lapping[.]” The marked absence of the first verb creates a visual and audible hole in the poem, introducing a grammatical tension that mirrors the physical tension being described. When the phrase is read aloud, even the insertion of a simple “there is” wrecks the subtle connection. Roethke employs another interesting grammatical twist in line 24. As the line stands, it reads “The flat-roofed houses, coming down in gusts…” While if this line read in context with line 23, we are to understand that it is the rain coming down in gusts, rather than the houses, the ambiguous placement of the participial phrase indicates the potential for a much more destructive double meaning.

This poem is one primarily of linked images, and it is the intensity of these images that captures the violence of the storm in words. The picture of “whitening trees” (ln. 20) is not one soon forgotten. In these two words, he captures both the glare of lightening in a literal sense and the emotion of fear in a secondary sense. As people pale when they are afraid, so the trees turn white. If Roethke had indicated a passive meaning by a different word structure, he could have excluded the second connotation, but he did not. His description of the “wizened oranges” (ln. 32) is also remarkably vivid. The word “wizened” carries several meanings implicit with the literal “‘wrinkled,” including the connotation of old age. Roethke is not just describing wrinkled oranges falling to the ground – he is also describing the old falling before the new. The matter is described with neither pleasure nor outrage: the narrator seems to accept it as a fact of life and moves forward with his poem.

However, other factors notwithstanding, sound is one of the predominant features in this poem. While Roethke does not employ a rhyme scheme, his choice of words often aurally illustrates the image he is describing. The entire first stanza is almost completely devoted to a description of sound. Read aloud, “while the wind whines…whistling” imitates the sound of rushing air with the repeated “wh” digraph. Similarly, the phrase “rattling and flapping of leaves” recreates the sound of wet leaves with peculiar accuracy. When he describes the street-lamp “swinging and slamming,” Roethke is equally effective. In the first word, “swing” requires a relatively extended pronunciation to capture the transition from the low “sw” to higher “ing.” The pronunciation of the first syllable in “slamming” is much quicker by comparison. By the juxtaposition of these two words, Roethke literally creates a change in speed when the poem is read aloud, mirroring the swing and crash of the street-lamp.

Roethke also explores the potential of sound in this poem through his use of irregular meter. In the third line of the second stanza, “a fine fume of rain” scans as |. _ _ . _ |. The heavy emphasis on the consecutive longer syllables mirrors the action of driving forward. In the thirteenth line of the third stanza, “great last leap of the wave” [ _ _ _ .. _ ] has a similar effect. In contrast, Roethke employs a choppier meter when he writes “flicking the foam from the whitecaps” in the seventh line of the second stanza, which scans as | _ .. _ .. _ . |. The shorter syllables mimic the sharper action. This metrical effect is present throughout the poem. Once or twice may have been chance, but the sheer multiplicity indicates that Roekthe was purposefully manipulating the rhythm of his words.

Clearly, Roethke communicates his ideas through a very intricate and beautiful poem – but what exactly are these ideas? On the surface, this poem is simply a description of a hurricane. Specifically, Roethke concentrates on the physical manifestations of the storm to capture its power. Nature is at war against herself – “wind from the sea and wind from the mountain contending” – and the result is destruction. The storm shows no mercy on any scale; flowers and cliffs alike fall before it. The intermittent first person narration displays complete human submission to the hurricane. However, while various layers of allegory could be read into the poem at this point, such an interpretation would be a mistake. One could say it is a poem about life and death – which on some levels it is – but it is still primarily a poem about a storm. The symbolism is limited at best, as the poem hinges on concrete images. Theodore Roekthe’s work should be appreciated as an awe-inspiring picture, not a brand of philosophical agenda. It is an artwork of sound, style, and image: but that is all.