Robert Creeley on reading the "difficult" poetry of Louis Zukofsky and Gertrude Stein

[This is a brief excerpt from a 1999 interview with Robert Obermayer, published in the September/October 1999 issue of American Poetry Review. Obermayer asked Creeley about Louis Zukofsky's influence.]

"[O]ne has to really spend time with [Stein]," says Creeley, "and not so much trust her, but trust the writing and presume it will discover its own patterns."

[I]t's true that if the disposition toward the poetry is that one comes to it for what one can take away, paradoxically, with Louis you'll take away a lot, but not by thinking you can. One can't go there to get that kind of instruction. It's like living on a mountain or in any physical or social place that doesn't really yield anything unless you're there. Zukofsky requires a particular affection and hanging around. Gertrude Stein certainly presents the same need that one has to really spend time with her and not so much trust her, but trust the writing and presume it will discover its own patterns. Although poetry can be used as a didactic or dogmatic agency for transmittal of various information, it doesn't necessarily depend upon that for its authority.