On this, the day after the final day of National Poetry Month (April 2017), a poet who wore more than one hat (in that he was affiliated with more than one group of American poets in the 20th century) is Robert Creeley (1926 – 2005). He was considered among the Beat poets in the 1960s to be a contemporary, and prior to this, when he was a teacher at Black Mountain College when it existed in the 1950s in North Carolina, he was regarded as one of the “Black Mountain Poets.” Later in the 1980s, and until his death in 2005, Creeley forged his own way, breaking away from the solely spare style he’d been known for, while still creating a distinctive style. He is also considered influential in shifting poetry from depending on history and tradition as being sources of poetic inspiration and giving instead the ongoing experiences of a person’s life more significance.
I was introduced to Robert Creeley by a friend who gave me a miniature book about him entitled “Robert Creeley Autobiography.” It turns out this small book is a reprint of Creely’s autobiography that appears in the resource “Contemporary Authors, Autobiography Series,” Volume 10 published in 1989.
I would like to read more of this poet – he is considered fairly prolific and also wrote prose and essays as well.
OLD STORY
Like kid on float
of ice block sinking
in pond the field had made
from winter’s melting snow
so wisdom accumulated
to disintegrate
in conduits of brain
in neural circuits faded
while gloomy muscles shrank
mind padded the paths
its thought had wrought
its habits had created
till like kid afloat
on ice block broken
on or inside the thing it stood
or was forsaken.
–Robert Creeley, 1994
corneliatrent 