Robert Creeley RIP

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series of emails i got at work today:

I just learned that Bob Creeley has died, of pneumonia, in Texas. I don't know any details yet other than that.

As many of you know, the House has had a long relationship with
poet Robert Creeley - who was one of our first Writers House Fellows,
and whose was awarded the Pennsylvania Prize by our magazine,
XConnect, just last year.

We're deeply saddened by Creeley's death, and Tom and I would
very much like to mark the occasion by getting together with our favorite Creeley poems and reading them to each other next week - Monday night, April 4, from 5-6 PM in the Arts Cafe.

Here is the Creeley link we have on PennSound:
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Creeley.html

A review of Robert Creeley's "If I were writing this" in The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 11, 2004.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/books/8394026.htm

In the email I had from him recently, discussing plans to meet up, he wrote: "As luck has it, we'll be in Marfa, Texas of all places..." We decided to meet up in Providence later in the summer.

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 16:48 (twenty-one years ago)

oh fuck. RIP.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

RIP

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 16:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I met him once and gave him a poem I wrote. His reading was like being in church.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

RIP

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 30 March 2005 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

apologies for not separating the different emails. its been kind of crazy around here.

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 17:02 (twenty-one years ago)

shit! i met him once too! he was so awesome!

RIP.

― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

rip.

if you miss(ed) him, you can buy a cd of him reading his own work at jagjaguwar.com

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

RIP

i liked him

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

i was working on some theology of grace for the book when i heard robert creely died, and also thinking about hollywood blondes and 50s movies, for an essay i may right, and then i click over to metafilter and i hear about it.

the thing with creeley--is it looks so fucking easy and conversational, so you sit down and say i can do this (and every poet in the last 20 yrs says to themselves i can do that)--i dont even have to know the allusions, i can write about talking or having a coke or going to the movies or that movie star i like...

but grace is so hard, its difficult to gain, it is given after living, and living hard.

the other thing is that he had this all new, all american, all wonderful, propulsive, and human working through of grace, as a series of happy aand not so happy accidents that laid out a compicated kind of intuitive heremeutics.

but w/o all the fancy words.

― anthony, Wednesday, 30 March 2005 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

RIP Mr. Creeley.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

...the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,
...

― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

This is very bizarre. Either last night or the night before, I was trying to remember if Robert Creeley was still alive or not.

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Thursday, 31 March 2005 00:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember what reminded me of him now. I was thinking about how I sometimes used to where my shirt sleeves unbuttoned, but not rolled up, as he sometimes did. (Somehow it looked very appropriate on him.)

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Thursday, 31 March 2005 00:28 (twenty-one years ago)

(He was a poet in residence for a semester, or something like that, when I was a student at Temple.)

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Thursday, 31 March 2005 00:29 (twenty-one years ago)

fargnutsonawetbong,rip.
m.

― msp (msp), Thursday, 31 March 2005 02:48 (twenty-one years ago)

holy fucking shit. creeley's influence/presence/&c on new zealand poetry, freed, &c, was probably as great as any 20thC poet . . . I used to sort've resent him; but "I Know A Man" is one of THE poems scratched into my soul &c.
RIP.

― etc, Thursday, 31 March 2005 04:18 (twenty-one years ago)

He gave me his mailing address the last time I saw him read, and I was still composing the letter I was going to send him. I think I'm going to cry now.

Rest in peace, Robert Creeley.

― Fa Fa fa FA, Fa fa Fa fa FA Fa (poop), Thursday, 31 March 2005 08:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Quick-Step

More gaily, dance
with such ladies make
a circumstance of dancing.

Let them lead
around and around, all
awkwardness apart.

There is
an easy grace gained
from falling forward

in time, in
simple time to
all their graces.

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Thursday, 31 March 2005 11:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Pieces

I didn't
want
to hurt you.
Don't

stop
to think. It
hurts
to live

like this,
meat
sliced
walking.

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Thursday, 31 March 2005 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Some Echoes

Some echoes,
little pieces,
falling, a dust,

sunlight, by
the window, in
the eyes. Your

hair as
you brush
it, the light

behind
the eyes,
what is left of it.

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Thursday, 31 March 2005 12:01 (twenty-one years ago)

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