American Poet: A Novel

Thank you Jeff Vande Zande for creating the character of Denver Hoptner and returning him home for a Saginaw summer to be transformed by its malleable iron heat. Forged in personal crisis, Denver loved and hated his hometown as he walked its tension-filled streets where he felt his poetic voice unwelcome, another lost son, much like Roethke two generations before.

Denver was stuck in writer�s block...until he learned that it was because of Saginaw that Roethke found his images to write...until he learned to go back to move forward...until he valued his father�s teachings of history of place and of hard work, not taking the easy way but do it right, only then was he able to discover his own uniqueness and potential in the context of his community....Denver�s �rite of passage,� so filled with courage, sacrifice and risk, guides us in what�s important. May more of us listen to his shouts of �Save this House� to serve Roethke�s hometown and to honor a poet�s life. May more of us climb with Denver and Jeff Vande Zande to become 'children on top of the greenhouse.' Let's have it crowded up there! �Annie Ransford, president Friends of Theodore Roethke