Chapter Two: ROBERT CREELEY
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An Oral Interpretation Script Illustrating the Influence
379 AN ORAL INTERPRETATION SCRIPT ILLUSTRATING THE INFLUENCE ON CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY OF THE THREE BLACK MOUNTAIN POETS: CHARLES OLSON, ROBERT CREELEY, ROBERT DUNCAN THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE By H. Vance James, B.A. Denton, Texas August, 1981 J r James, H. Vance, An Oral Interpretation Script Illustrating the Influence on Contemporary American Poetry of the Three Black Mountain Poets: Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan. Master of Science (Speech Communication and Drama), August, 1981, 87 pp., bibliography, 23 titles. This oral interpretation thesis analyzes the impact that three poets from Black Mountain College had on contemporary American poetry. The study concentrates on the lives, works, poetic theories of Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan and culminates in a lecture recital compiled from historical data relating to Black Mountain College and to the three prominent poets. @ 1981 HAREL VANCE JAMES All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . iv Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . 1 History of Black Mountain College Purpose of the Study Procedure II. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION . 12 Introduction Charles Olson Robert Creeley Robert Duncan III. ANALYSIS . 31 IV. LECTURE RECITAL . 45 The Black Mountain Poets: Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan "These Days" (Olson) "The Conspiracy" (Creeley) "Come, Let Me Free Myself" (Duncan) "Thank You For Love" (Creeley) "The Door" (Creeley) "Letter 22" (Olson) "The Dance" (Duncan) "The Awakening" (Creeley) "Maximus, To Himself" (Olson) "Words" (Creeley) "Oh No" (Creeley) "The Kingfishers" (Olson) "These Days" (Olson) APPENDIX . -
Poem on the Page: a Collection of Broadsides
Granary Books and Jeff Maser, Bookseller are pleased to announce Poem on the Page: A Collection of Broadsides Robert Creeley. For Benny and Sabina. 15 1/8 x 15 1/8 inches. Photograph by Ann Charters. Portents 18. Portents, 1970. BROADSIDES PROLIFERATED during the small press and mimeograph era as a logical offshoot of poets assuming control of their means of publication. When technology evolved from typewriter, stencil, and mimeo machine to moveable type and sophisticated printing, broadsides provided a site for innovation with design and materials that might not be appropriate for an entire pamphlet or book; thus, they occupy a very specific place within literary and print culture. Poem on the Page: A Collection of Broadsides includes approximately 500 broadsides from a diverse range of poets, printers, designers, and publishers. It is a unique document of a particular aspect of the small press movement as well as a valuable resource for research into the intersection of poetry and printing. See below for a list of some of the poets, writers, printers, typographers, and publishers included in the collection. Selected Highlights from the Collection Lewis MacAdams. A Birthday Greeting. 11 x 17 Antonin Artaud. Indian Culture. 16 x 24 inches. inches. This is no. 90, from an unstated edition, Translated from the French by Clayton Eshleman signed. N.p., n.d. and Bernard Bador with art work by Nancy Spero. This is no. 65 from an edition of 150 numbered and signed by Eshleman and Spero. OtherWind Press, n.d. Lyn Hejinian. The Guard. 9 1/4 x 18 inches. -
Living Into Robert Creeley's Poetics Robert J. Bertholf It
Journal of American Studies of Turkey 27 (2008) : 9-49 And Then He Bought Some Lettuce: Living into Robert Creeley’s Poetics Robert J. Bertholf It must have been the fall semester 1963 when Robert Creeley came to Eugene to give a reading at the University of Oregon. For Love: Poems 1950–1960 had been published the year before. The writing program at the school held generous views about Creeley’s poetry and For Love had already brought in equally generous reviews. I went to the reading with great anticipation, mainly because as a second-year graduate student I was feeling free from Longfellow, Hawthorne and what I thought of as the pernicious New England mind; this was a chance to hear a poet speak directly to an audience and to get a sense of what was being talked about as the “New American Poetry.” The reading began with enthusiasm and went on with the high energy of Creeley’s tightly stretched observations about here and there, the isolation of self and longing for a community, the cry for the commune of love, and the insistence for exploring the abilities of language to express thought. About half way through the reading I was flooded with the terrifying anxiety that Creeley was propounding ways of seeing and thinking that I had fled New England to escape. “This guy’s from New England,” I said to a friend sitting beside me, and left. Creeley’s remark on the subject read years later would not have given me much comfort after leaving the reading: At various times I’ve put emphasis on the fact that I was raised in New England, in Massachusetts for the most part. -
Ac Know Ledg Ments
A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s In the course of my research, Robert Duncan’s friends, without exception, granted me a share in the generosity, goodwill, and love for life that so char- acterized his being. Two people made a special eff ort to help me understand Robert Duncan’s “dailiness,” and their insights were key factors in the making of this book. Jess Collins agreed that it was an appropriate time for a biography of Duncan to be written, and he welcomed me into his life for a little bit over a de cade, allowing me to experience the rituals of house hold that he had shared with Duncan. Barbara Jones and her family in Bakersfi eld, California, extended me great hospitality. Barbara’s memories of her brother as a child and of their life in the San Joaquin Valley were in all ways illuminating. Th eir insights were key factors in the making of this book. Th is book was also made possible through the ongoing tireless support of my husband, Th omas Evans. His own studies of Jess, Duncan, and the West Coast assemblage artists contributed at every turn to the thoroughness of this book. His companionship allows me to live in a house hold as rich as Jess and Duncan’s. I am grateful to Robert Duncan’s friends, family, students and acquaintances: Gerald Ackerman, Robert Adamson, the late Virginia Admiral, Charles Alexander, the late Donald Allen, Michael Anania, Bruce Andrews, Norman Austin, Todd Baron, Dawn Michelle Baude, Tosh Berman, Charles Bern- stein, Robert Bertholf, the late Robin Blaser, Richard Blevins, George Bower- ing, the late Stan Brakhage, the late David Bromige, the late James Brough- ton, the late Norman O. -
Imc Robert Creeley
^IMC ROBERT CREELEY: A WRITING BIOGRAPHY AND INVENTORY by GERALDINE MARY NOVIK B.A., University of British Columbia, 1966 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of English We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA February, 1973 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of ENGLISH The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date February 7, 1973 ABSTRACT Now, in 1973, it is possible to say that Robert Creeley is a major American poet. The Inventory of works by and about Creeley which comprises more than half of this dissertation documents the publication process that brought him to this stature. The companion Writing Biography establishes Creeley additionally as the key impulse in the new American writing movement that found its first outlet in Origin, Black Mountain Review, Divers Books, Jargon Books, and other alternative little magazines and presses in the fifties. After the second world war a new generation of writers began to define themselves in opposition to the New Criticism and academic poetry then prevalent and in support of Pound and Williams, and as these writers started to appear in tentative little magazines a further definition took place. -
251 Poetry Warrior: Robert Creeley in His Letters
ROBERT ARCHAMBEAU POETRY WARRIOR: ROBERT CREELEY IN HIS LETTERS Creeley, Robert. The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley, ed. Rod Smith, Peter Baker, and Kaplan Harris. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. Robert Archambeau “The book,” wrote Robert Creeley to Rod Smith, who was then hard at work on the volume in question, Creeley’s Selected Letters, “will certainly ‘tell a story.’” Now that the text of that book has emerged from Smith’s laptop and rests between hard covers, it’s a good time to ask just what story those letters tell. Certainly it isn’t a personal one. Creeley was a New Englander, through and through, and of the silent generation to boot. Yankee reticence blankets the letters too thickly for us to feel much of the texture of Creeley’s quotidian life, beyond whether he feels (to use his favored idiom) he’s “mak- ing it” through the times or not. Instead, the letters, taken together, tell an intensely literary story—and, as the plot develops, an institutional, academic one. Call this story “From the Outside In,” maybe. Or, better, treat it as one of the many Rashomon-like eyewitness accounts of that contentious epic that goes by the title The Poetry Wars. If, like me, you entered the little world of American poetry in the 1990s, you found the Cold War that was ending in the realm of politics to be in full effect in poetry. What had begun as a brushfire conflict between rival journals and anthologies in the fifties and early sixties had settled into an institutionalized rivalry, with an Iron Curtain drawn between the mutu- ally suspicious empires of Iowa City and Buffalo. -
Jonathan Williams, Including Reviews of the Lord of Orchards
Reviews and comments about Jonathan Williams, including reviews of The Lord of Orchards: The Truffle-Hound of American Poetry Jeffery’s official obituary of Jonathan Williams as published in the Asheville Poetry Review, on the North Carolina Arts Council website, and elsewhere, 2008-2010. Jonathan Williams: The Lord of Orchards Indy Week Top Ten Fall Book Releases September 2017. Readings in the Triangle of North Carolina chosen as Our Pick by Indy Week, November 2017. “A not-to-be-missed Festschrift commemorating this witty avant-garde publisher, photographer and man of letters. —Washington Post reviewer Michael Dirda in his holiday 2018 list “Forget trendy bestsellers: This best books list takes you off the beaten track”, November 28, 2018. When I hear the word "bluets," I tend to think not of Maggie Nelson's widely adored lyric essay, but rather of Jonathan Williams. His 1985 book, Blues and Roots/Rue and Bluets: A Garland for the Southern Appalachians, is a paean to the landscape that held and compelled him, a compendium of careful attention to the nuances and the lilt of a place. (Originally from Asheville, Williams, who died in 2008, attended Black Mountain College in the 1950s and lived in Scaly Mountain, N.C., for much of his life.) With Richard Owen, the Hillsborough-based poet Jeffery Beam coedited Jonathan Williams: The Lord of Orchards, a new anthology of "essays, images, and shouts" in response to Williams's fifty-plus years of poetry, photography, Southern folk-art collecting, and publishing (he ran famed independent press The Jargon Society). Fittingly, Beam and Owen bring together a cadre of interdisciplinary artists and writers to celebrate the collection. -
Borderlines of Poetry and Art: Vancouver, American Modernism, and the Formation of the West Coast Avant-Garde, 1961 -69
BORDERLINES OF POETRY AND ART: VANCOUVER, AMERICAN MODERNISM, AND THE FORMATION OF THE WEST COAST AVANT-GARDE, 1961 -69 by LARA HALINA TOMASZEWSKA B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1994 M.A., Concordia University, 1998 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Fine Arts) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September 2007 © Lara Halina Tomaszewska, 2007 i ABSTRACT In 1967, San Francisco poet Robin Blaser titled his Vancouver-based journal The Pacific Nation because the imaginary nation that he envisaged was the "west coast." Blaser was articulating the mythic space that he and his colleagues imagined they inhabited at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia: a nation without borders, without nationality, and bound by the culture of poetry. The poetic practices of the San Francisco Renaissance, including beat, projective, and Black Mountain poetics, had taken hold in Vancouver in 1961 with poet Robert Duncan's visit to the city which had catalyzed the Tish poetry movement. In 1963, Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, and Robert Creeley participated in the Vancouver Poetry Conference, an event that marked the seriousness and vitality of the poetic avant-garde in Vancouver. The dominant narrative of avant-garde visual art in Vancouver dates its origins to the late 1960s, with the arrival of conceptualism, especially the ideas and work of Dan Graham and Robert Smithson. By contrast, this thesis argues for an earlier formation of the avant-garde, starting with the Tish poetry movement and continuing with a series of significant local events such as the annual Festival of the Contemporary Arts (1961-71), organized by B.C. -
Selected Poems, 1945
UC-Creeley_45-05.qxd 6/22/07 11:27 AM Page 1 Introduction ROBERT CREELEY WAS BORN in Arlington, Massachusetts, in 1926, and grew up in rural West Acton. His father’s side of the family was well es- tablished in the state, but Creeley was raised in closer proximity to his mother’s people, who came from Maine. When he was four, his father died of pneumonia. This was followed closely by the removal of Creeley’s left eye, injured by shattered glass a few years before, and by the straitened circumstance of the Great Depression. His mother, a nurse, kept care of the family—Creeley had an older sister—and his mother’s character, his mother’s habits, necessarily left a strong imprint on his own. (“My cheek- bones resonate/with her emphasis,” he writes in “Mother’s Voice” [000].) Influential also were the losses and uncertainties, the drop in status, which left their mark in patterns of thought, attitude, and behavior. The trajec- tory of Creeley’s adult life, his travels, employments, friendships, house- holds, and loves, is but one trace of a deeper restlessness also recorded in his work—or so it is tempting to think given Creeley’s enduring fascina- tion with contingency and his frequent return, in writing and conversa- tion, to the biographical facts cited above. Yet the import of a fact is never a fact. Life itself is, like writing, an act of interpretation. “Whatever is pre- sumed of a life that designs it as a fixture of social intent, or form of fam- ily, or the effect of an overwhelming event, has little bearing here, even if one might in comfortable hindsight say that it all followed.”1 Disjunction, indeed, played an important role for Creeley—his refusals were often as important as what he embraced. -
The Limits of Fabrication: Materials Science, Materialist Poetics
THE LIMITS OF FABRICATION THE LIMITS OF FABRICATION MATERIALS SCIENCE, MATERIALIST POETICS NATHAN BROWN Fordham University Press New York 2017 Copyright © 2017 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Visit us online at www.fordhampress.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available online at catalog.loc.gov. Printed in the United States of America 19 18 17 5 4 3 2 1 First edition A book in the American Literatures Initiative (ALI), a collaborative publishing project of NYU Press, Fordham University Press, Rutgers University Press, Temple University Press, and the University of Virginia Press. The Initiative is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information, please visit www.americanliteratures.org. for Cynthia Things, and present ones, are the absolute conditions. —Charles Olson, “Equal, That Is, to the Real Itself” (1958) Blt o by Bolt Every single P art is a crown to Anatom —Caroline Bergvall, Goan Atom (2001) Work nano, think cosmologic. -
By Robert Creeley
caves.final 8/5/05 11:01 AM Page 38 THE 2005 PHI BETA KAPPA POEM Caves by Robert Creeley Robert creeley ’47 died on March 30, shortly after being tions, made it clear that “plain” need not mean simple or easy. In named the poet for the Literary Exercises conducted annually by 2004, Creeley visited French caves renowned for their prehistoric Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter during Commencement week. paintings, and, she said, was moved to consider the impact and In his memory, at what would have been a fitting homecoming influence of caves, their stone walls as a medium, and the paint- (Creeley was born in Arlington, which borders Cambridge, and ings made upon them. first published his poetry in an undergraduate literary journal), As an introduction to her reading, Vendler briefly interpreted portions of a recent work, “Caves,” were read during the ceremony. her four selections in light of that experience. The first section Phi Beta Kappa vice president Judith Vichniac noted that the recalls a child’s love of caves and spaces where he found solitude prolific Creeley had published more than 60 books. Her brief nar- and room for the making of art. The third captures the astonish- rative also hinted at the wide geographic reach of his energetic life: ing experience of entering the caves in France and seeing the he left Harvard in 1944 to become an ambulance driver in India works that unknown artists were compelled to make on those and Burma for the American Field Service. He returned for a year, dark walls. -
AGENEALOGY Into the Company of Love It All Returns
THE LOST AMERICA OF LOVE: A GENEALOGY BARRETT WATTEN, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY Into the company of love it all returns. —Robert Creeley1 I This is apocryphal. A party in Hollywood, at which it was known that Liz would appear in the company of Eddie Fisher. Eddie is on the wane. Dick arrives, and while Liz and Dick have not yet consummated their love interest, the tension is electric. Having enjoyed as much of it as anyone can stand, it is time to leave. Liz has the look of one hypnotized, her car keys in her hand. Dick approaches, takes the keys. "You're my girl." "I'm your girl," she repeats, and they go out together. And from that day forward, for as long as it lasts, Eddie is out of the picture.2 Love beckons, and I decide. I want to account for a particular version of "love" in its intersection with poetry as a construction of postmodern American poetics: from its apex among postwar writers grouped together as the New American Poets to its decline and fall with poets of the succeeding generation, After the shipwreck, I managed to salvage only two texts from my extensive library—Sherman Paul's The Lost America of Love and my own Bad History, which I had in any case more or less com- mitted to memory. The Lost America of Love was a book I initially did not like when it was published, but there is nothing like free time on a desert island to reevaluate one's responses. And of course, many memories of my personal association with Paul at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s came back to me on rereading his work.