Robert Creeley is a poet of short lines that have the sound of speech, a certain wisdom of the lonely road, and a wry way with Americanisms of every kind, as in a signature poem,
“I Know a Man: As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,–John, I
sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddam big car,
drive, he said, for
christs’s sake, look
out where yr going.”
Robert Creeley has been a friendly eminence among American poets for more than 50 years, favored by the beats and William Carlos Williams: Creeley was a doctor’s son from West of Boston who lost his left eye in a freak accident, who got to Harvard but didn’t graduate, whose privileged life has been acquainted with suffering.
All his life he has been a poet, the way his New England ancestors were farmers, with a job to be done every day of the year. The poet Robert Creeley, in this hour of the Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Robert Creeley, poet.