A Short Brief: Throughout his life, Robert Creeley was and still is a stunning writer who has gone through, and overcome many adversities. His unstable relationships and numerous emotional struggles have had a huge impact on his style of writing. He tends to use small, concise phrases, most of the time with no more than five phrases in each individual stanza. Every word in his poem is significant, which suggests that writing in the shadow of this extraordinary poet is not such an easy thing to do. In this way, Creeley has inspired many writers of all ages to rise up to the challenge. In the words of critic Lee Harwood, “he has an amazing intensity when he reads. Every 'and', 'the' and 'but' matter. No superfluous words or literary pirouettes. Just trying to get to the heart of the 'matter'.
From the day he was born, May 21, 1926, Creeley has always had a wild imagination, though he did not yet know then that he would later use it to his advantage. The unexpected death of his father and the loss of his eye only proved to be additional obstacles for him to overcome. “The loss of his eye changed the way he perceived objects and people. Sometimes Creeley makes use of a pun, presenting the words ‘I’ and ‘eye’ interchangeably in poems. His work shows preoccupation of being alone, or being a single ‘I’.”(Padgett 270) After these tragic events occurred, Creeley was faced with a new life in the role of the “man of the house,” on the family farm, feeling as alone as ever without a father for guidance. Later on, when he was about fourteen years old, he was granted a scholarship to a private school known as Holderness School, located in New Hampshire. It wasn’t until he began learning there that he discovered the joys of writing and finally “decided that he wanted to be a writer” (Padgett 271). From there he went on to Harvard, where he learned to enjoy jazz and art, until he dropped out during World War I in order to drive an ambulance in the India-Burma area. Though he later returned to Harvard, he never actually made it to graduation.
After dropping out of Harvard for the second time, Creeley made the decision to be a publisher in Majorca, located in the Balearic Islands, where “he became the editor of the Divers Press” and began publishing the works of other people (Padgett 272). This job enabled him to meet other “poets and artists from the United States and Europe.” (Padgett 272) One of these poets was Charles Olson, who quickly became one of Creeley’s biggest inspirations. Olson was the one who eventually introduced Creeley to Black Mountain College, where Creeley would later on edit the Black Mountain Review magazine have a part-time teaching job. He even received his bachelor’s degree as a student at the same college. From there he moved on to the University of New Mexico, where he received his MA and taught for a living.
During the different transitions throughout his life, Creeley suffered three divorces, the loss of his father and left eye, and his feeling of being alone in the world. These topics would later become the subjects or inspirations of many of his poems, which have earned him many awards and titles such as the Bollingen Prize (1999), the Lannon Lidetime Achievement Award (2001), the NY state poet (1989), and the Frost Medal (1987). His numerous struggles have proved to be the most difficult obstacles that Robert Creeley has had to overcome, but without them, Creeley probably would never be the poet and man that he is today.
From Another Collection:
Robert Creeley (1926 - 2005)
Robert Creeley (born May 21, 1926, Arlington, Massachusetts) was a poet with more than sixty books of poetry to his name.
He was the author of For Love and is usually grouped with the Black Mountain poets. He was quite friendly with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg and John Wieners. For many years he taught at Buffalo and later at Brown University.
Robert Creeley passed away on March 30, 2005.
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