Robert Creeley
April 10–11, 2000
- Reading and Introduction by Leigh Esposito (55:22): Streaming video, MP3 audio, see below for the reading segmented by poems
- Discussion (1:19:47): Streaming video, MP3 audio, see below for the discussion segmented by content
- See the Kelly Writers House calendar entry for more about this event
- 2000 Fellows seminar notes
- 2000 Fellows print brochure
Bio
Robert Creeley is among the most accomplished and most influential living
poets. He was born in Massachusetts in 1926 and as a young poet after WWII
was strongly swayed by William Carlos Williams, who later praised Creeley
has having "the subtlest feeling for the measure...except in the verses of
Ezra Pound." Creeley helped launch Cid Corman's magazine Origin,
conducted a huge and profound correspondence with Charles Olson, and soon
joined Olson at Black Mountain College where he edited The Black
Mountain Review. Olson admired how Creeley "lands syntax down the
alley." His collections of poems include For Love (1962);
Words (1967); Pieces (1969); The Finger (1970); A
Day Book (1972); Thirty Things (1974); Away (1976);
Later (1978); Memory Gardens (1986); Windows (1990).
The Collected Poems, 1945-75 was published in 1983; So There:
Poems 1976-83 appeared in 1998. He has lived in Guatemala, Finland,
France and Spain, and served with the American Field Service in India and
Burma. He was awarded the Horst Bienek Lyrikpreis from the Bavarian
Academy of Fine Arts, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant,
and, among many other honors, was New York State Laureate from 1989-91. He
is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and lives in
Buffalo, New York. Edward Dorn praised Creeley as "the master of immediate
speech," while Allen Ginsberg revered Creeley's "syllable by syllable
intelligence." Robert Creeley held the Poetics Chair at SUNY Buffalo,
prior to Charles Bernstein.
April 10, 2000 reading segmented by poems
- Place (0:31): MP3
- Won't it be Fine? (2:57): MP3
- Bresson's Movies (1:12): MP3
- Echoes (0:43): MP3
- En Famille (5:13): MP3
- Help (1:03): MP3
- Love (0:25): MP3
- Myself (2:02): MP3
- The House (1:32): MP3
- There (1:03):MP3
- Thinking (0:52): MP3
- This World (0:08): MP3
- end of Presences: A Text for Marisol (9:07): MP3
- "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang..." (4:20): MP3
Also see this material on PennSound.
April 11, 2000 discussion segmented by content
- introduction (5:45): MP3
- on using Monologue (6:29): MP3
- using tools to make objective writing and sound (5:49): MP3
- poems of memory and assumption (4:46): MP3
- making it new (6:11): MP3
- on the impact of William Carlos Williams's angry poetry (3:57): MP3
- on young poets (2:54): MP3
- form as an expression of content (4:08): MP3
- on having few precedents (4:59): MP3
- on Denise Levertov (4:31): MP3
- poetry, the internet, and social power (3:35): MP3
- conversation with Marjorie Perloff about love poetry (7:01): MP3
- on making objective texts (4:05): MP3
- on Bob Dylan (3:08): MP3
- on hearing poetry read out loud (3:24): MP3
- influences (3:03): MP3
- reading and discussing "A Valentine for Pen" (3:55): MP3
Also see this material on PennSound.