The Waking

"The Waking" is a poem written by Theodore Roethke in 1953 in the form of a villanelle. It comments on the unknowable^[1] with a contemplative tone. It also has been interpreted as comparing life to waking and death to sleeping.^[2]

In popular culture

• The poem appears as an object in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
• An excerpt of the poem also appears at the beginning of Dean Koontz's novel Odd Hours.
• Kurt Elling sings the poem on his 2007 album Nightmoves.
• Quoted by the psycho cop in Stephen King's novel Desperation.
• Quoted in Dana Simpson's "Ozy and Millie."
• Quoted in John Le Carré's The Russia House