Creeley's biographer, Faas, seems unwilling to forgive him for his later maturity. As though Bob Creeley should have been a Charles Bukowski instead of mellowing with age as he did. Faas has little appreciation for the later work, which I find, at its best, to be equal to that of the self-destructive younger self. There are flaccid stretches in the later poetry, I admit, yet also a kind of wisdom that Faas sees as almost cynical, as though Creeley were only pretending to be less choleric after the age of 60!

So the biographer is sympathetic to the unsympathetic younger writer, dislikes the likable older Creeley. Of course you can't have those tortured early poems without a tortured life, but I'm comforted by the fact that the later work, which I'm coming to appreciate more and more, shows a less tortured sense of self.

I did find a possible source for the "After Lorca" poem. I don't want to give it away just yet. (It's not a poem by Lorca.)