Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)

Dolor 1948

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,

Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper-weight,

All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,

Desolation in immaculate public places,

Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,

The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,

Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,

Endless duplication of lives and objects.

And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,

Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,

Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,

Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,

Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.

Considerations for Critical Thinking and Writing

1. FIRST RESPONSE. List all the examples of alliteration you can find. Why is the extreme use of that poetic convention appropriate to the subject or theme of this poem?
2. What is the speaker’s relationship to this workplace? Why is it significant that he or she is the only person — indeed, the only living thing — in the poem?
3. Consider word choice: How do the multisyllabic words the speaker chooses establish a rhythm that helps to create the poem’s overall effect?
4. CREATIVE RESPONSE. The poem was written long before the Internet age. Write a version of the poem that accounts for changes in the contemporary workplace. Consider whether computers have the potential to conquer the sadness Roethke’s speaker notices in the workplace or whether they, in fact, intensify it.