What is it about Creeley anyway? It's maybe a new style of self-presentation, a new language. The closest precursor is Wiliams, but Williams would never have said "my love was a feather, a flat / sleeping thing." Or "Pain is a flower like that one, / like this one, / like that one, / like this one." One difference is that Creeley will often eschew the visual for entire poems. Or the visual aspect will be reduced to a few shades of black and gray. He is much more abstract than Williams or Pound.

I have always come back to Creeley periodically, at different stages of my life, and found something different each time. Although I only met him once in person, I did write him a letter on one occasion, and received answer--from Finland! He liked my article on Williams published in "William Carlos Williams: Man and Poet." He was also a reader of Bemsha Swing, mentioning this humble blog in an interview once.

There is a difference between reading the early Creeley in one's teens--younger than the Creeley who wrote these poems--and in one's forties, considerably older than the poet.

Creeley shows up in my own poetry a lot. I wrote a whole series based on "I Know A Man." I also wrote the lines "Collect Creeley seriously before I die" and "To say something Creeley wouldn't." Though I've always said Frank O'Hara was my favorite poet, Creeley is much closer to the way I write. Even when I tried to write like Frank it came out more like Bob. I don't how much I've written about him on this blog: I suspect quite a bit. There is always more to say about Creeley. I've suggested that the reading of his flatter, diarist works is equally valuable as a reading of his "greatest hits."