Robert+Creeley

Need to get this page moving forward. Write up a bio. Note his connections to Black Mountain and to Levertov and Charles Olson. Another section should be opened for critical discussion of his work. Some of that section you'll want to write after we've studied his work ... but in the meantime you can go looking for critical work on him by others. What's being said in the conversation about him? Also would be good to learn something about who influenced him, and something about poets who've //been// influenced //by// him. C.


 * Robert Creeley ** was an American poet most commonly associated with the Black Mountain poets. His poetic style was largely influenced by Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Charles Olson. The poetic tradition he identifies with is known as "The Projectivist Movement". This movement pulls from Black Mountain poets and techniques, Objectivist Poetics, and projected verse. He achieved many awards and published many books during his lifetime.

=Biography=

Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of over 60 books of poetry and abroad. He was born on May 21st, 1926 in Arlington Massachusetts and was raised by his mother and sister. Though blind in one eye from an accident when he was four, he served in the American Field Service during the war in the mid 1940's. He attended Harvard University from 1943 to 1946 and published his first poem in the campus magazine, "Wake", though he never graduated.In 1949 he began corresponding with William Carlos Williams, who connected him to Charles Olsen. In 1954 he was invited to join the faculty at Black Mountain College by his close friend and rector Charles Olson to become editor of //The Black Mountain Review//. Through //The Black Mountain Review// and his own critical writings he helped to define an emerging counter tradition to the literary establishment. There, he associated with the Black Mountain Poets, who were a group of writers including Denise Levertov, Ed Dorn, Fielding Dawson, and others. The Black Mountain Review was post war poetry that closely associated to the styles of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky. Robert Creeley and Charles Olson collectively developed the concept of a projective verse, which is a form of poetry that abandons traditional forms in favor of freely constructed verse. Olson deemed the process for making projective verse the "composition by field", and were famous in coining the idea that "form is never more than an extension of content."

=Style=

Arthur L. Ford writes in his book //Robert Creeley// (1978, p. 25), "Creeley has long been aware that he is part of a definable tradition in the American poetry of this century, so long as 'tradition' is thought of in general terms and so long as it recognizes crucial distinctions among its members. The tradition most visible to the general public has been the Eliot-Stevens tradition supported by the intellectual probings of the New Critics in the 1940s and early 1950s. Parallel to that tradition has been the tradition Creeley identifies with, the Pound-Olson-Zukofsky-Black Mountain tradition, what M. L. Rosenthal calls 'The Projectivist Movement'." This movement was based around the Black Mountain poets that Creeley had been working with at the time, mixed with the Projective Verse, and Objectivist Poetics.

=Black Mountain=

Black Mountain College was a liberal arts college that existed between 1933 and 1957. Creely is perhaps most well known for his connection to Black Mountain poetics. Black Mountain College could be considered very experimental because of it's "free, nonrigid atmosphere and ideals." It's also interesting to note that the college was owned an operated by the faculty, and the students performed tasks such as construction and maintenance of buildings and school grounds. There were no grades and graduation was based upon completion of project in the student's area of specialization. Creeley was the editor of the Black Mountain Review from 1955 to 1957. He is one of the most well known Black Mountain poets.

=Achievements=

Creeley's achievements include: the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, the NATIONAL Endowment for the French Grants, served as the New York Poet Laureate from 1989-1991, and was elected Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets in 1999.

=Popular Works=


 * //A Day Book// (1972) media type="youtube" key="XDwh0nJAw4U" height="315" width="420" align="right"
 * //Echoes (1994)//
 * //For Love// (1962)
 * //Hello: A journal, February 23-May 3, 1976// (1978)
 * //Just in Time: Poems 1984-1994// (2001)
 * //Later: New Poems// (1979)
 * //Life & Death// (1998)
 * //Memory Gardens// (1986)
 * //Mirrors// (1983)
 * //Pieces// (1968)
 * //Selected Poems// (1991)
 * //The Charm: Early and Uncollected Poems// (1968)
 * //The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975// (1982)
 * //Windows// (1990)
 * //Words// (1967)

=External Links=

Robert Creeley Collect Poems  Robert Creeley  Robert Creeley (1926- present)

=References=

Images are used in accordance with fair use practices.If you hold copyright to an image, and do not agree that its use accords with fair use practices,please contact the wiki's creator and organizer.