ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project would not have been possible without the generous support of Penelope Creeley. She has responded to our every question with detail and encouragement. We wish to thank our press editors Rachel Berchten, Laura Cerruti, Mary Francis, and Kim Hogeland for seeing the manuscript through the production process. Forrest Gander assisted with electronic files from the very end of Creeley’s life. Charles Bernstein, Benjamin Friedlander, Peter Gizzi, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, and Tom Raworth were among those closest to Creeley who deserve our thanks.

Michael Davidson deserves our gratitude for detailed feedback from the beginning to the end of our work on the manuscript. We wish to thank colleagues and staff at Bridge Street Books, Towson University, and St. Bonaventure University. Thanks go to the Honors College at Towson University and its dean at the time, Maria Fracasso, for providing material support for reproduction of archival materials. Thanks also go to Danielle Frownfelter for research assistance at St. Bonaventure University.

We wish to acknowledge the following curators and librarians who assisted in the search for letters and who fielded our many inquiries both big and small. They offered expertise and unfailing generosity often in the face of severe budget cuts and staffing shortages during the period of our research: Michael Basinski, curator; James Maynard, assistant curator; and staff members at the Poetry Collection, the University at Buffalo; Lynda Corey Claassen, director, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego; Melissa Watterworth, curator of library, Natural History and Rare Book Collection, for assistance with archival materials from the Charles Olson Research Collection, Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries; William McPheron, the William Saroyan Curator for British and American Literature at Stanford University Libraries; Polly Armstrong, public services manager; and Margaret Kimball, university archivist, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford; Nancy Kuhl, curator of poetry, Yale Collection of American Literature, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Tony Power, Contemporary Literature Collection, Special Collections & Rare Books Division, Bennett Library, Simon Fraser University; John Hodge, curator, Modern Literature Collection/Manuscripts, Olin Library, Washington University; Molly Schwartzburg, Cline Curator of British and American Literature; and Richard Workman, research librarian, Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin; Nicolette A. Dobrowolski, reference and access services librarian, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library; Marvin J. Taylor, director, Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University; Isaac Gewirtz, curator, and Anne Garner, librarian, Berg Collection, the New York Public Library; Becky Cape, head of reference and public services, the Lilly Library, Indiana University; Carrie Hintz, processing archivist, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Butler Library, Columbia University; Holly Snyder, North American History librarian and university archivist, John Hay Library, Brown University; Russell Maylone, curator, McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Library; David M. Hays, archivist, University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries; Genie Guerard, manuscripts librarian, UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections; James M. Smith, assistant curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, the Ohio State University Libraries; and the late Aggie Stillman, director of Sage Archives, Sage College.

Many friends and colleagues offered advice that helped shape the present volume. This company includes Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Anselm Berrigan, Michael Gizzi, Anne Waldman, Elizabeth Willis, Bill Morgan, Leslie Scalapino, Anselm Hollo, Philip Levy, Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop, Terry Cooney, Michael Kelleher, Libbie Rifkin, Lisa Jarnot, Kevin Killian, Lee Ann Brown, Tony Torn, Susan Howe, Steve Clay, Carolyn Forché, Harry Mattison, Marcella Durand, Jerome Rothenberg, Robert Grenier, Barrett Watten, Stephen Fredman, Michael Ruby, Cathy Eisenhower, Mark Wallace, Lorraine Graham, Tom Orange, Al Filreis, Bruce Jackson, Diane Christian, Jessica Smith, John Roche, Ed Sanders, Jen Bervin, Catherine Wagner, Michael Boughn, Cass Clarke, Victor Coleman, Albert Glover, David Landrey, Donald Wellman, Marilyn Brakhage, Phil Solomon, Fred Wah, Lauren Matz, Nancy Kuhl, and Richard Deming. Gary Lovesky, Genevieve Vidanes, and Martin Reddy opened their homes during travel research; Martin also rescued correspondence files that were corrupted by computer viruses. Mel Nichols, Deborah Lesko Baker, and Maggie Harris patiently endured the ballad of despairing editors, and we send them our gratitude.