I know a man -- Robert Creeley
 

I know a man
BY ROBERT CREELEY

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 goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ’s sake, look
out where yr going.



Republished with permission of the University of California Press, Robert Creeley, “I Know a Man” from Selected Poems of Robert Creeley, copyright © 1991 by the Regents of the University of California; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Got a good sharp laugh from this absurdist humor. Reminds me of Waiting for Goslo.

Well, after that bit of seeming miscompreheion, I cannot remain silent. First, my personal evaluation of this is that it was and remains the single most striking piece ever written by Creeley. So striking in fact that a successful film (when films were still important) was titled "Drive, he said."

Creeley was probably the most influential figure associated with Black Mountain College in American North Carolina, besides being philoprogentive -- two wives, a handful of kids -- and was also involved with Charle Olson's projective verse, a movement that interested William Carlos Williams among others. I have never warmed to Olson's windy egotism, nor have many others, but ah, Creeley, when not being coyly egocentric, could be very deep. Rather than say more here, I invite people to wrap their heads around a very different esthetic that is as compact as Japanese poetry, as swift as Homer, and often very stimulating.

An additional note that is relevant here is that Creeley lost one eye at some early date and so had limited vision.

I’ve enjoyed my copy of Creely’s collected poems for years. I have wondered why he seems to have drifted away since he died. He’s not a beat poet or New York school poet. He’s hard to categorize, which makes him a worthwhile and often an important poet. I would like a little more variety in form.

I like this poem a great deal. I fear it may remain my favourite poem by Creeley, however. Often he seems too bland to me when I read him. Olson also often feels too boring for the sustained attention his Miximus poems would require.
But this is very good, very good indeed.

Olson's Maximus poems seem very self-indulgent to me and too much focused on Portsmouth. Likewise, Creeley's often play at self adverstisement mixed with peek-a-boo. Rarely in my recollection does Creeley strike out even as far as W C Williams with his chickens and peignoirs. This one though is like the cry of the Spartans at Thermopylae: "Come and get them, scumbags!"

Yes, Cameron. He is good and often surprising. At a time when Dylan Thomas was putting on his road show in meter Creeley was, in a way similar to Bishop and Lowell, demonstrating a great mind at work. This thread has prompted me to take my volume off the shelf. H is not superficial.