PART SIX
If I Were Writing This, 1989–2005
Maine, Buffalo, Providence
Robert Creeley
Box 384
Waldoboro, ME. 04572
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 142071
August 10, 1989
Dear Bob,
“Mi tocayo” translates as “my name/sharer,” in Guatemala (where I first heard it from fellow we met in San Lucas on Lake Atitlan, who could only give us directions by means of left turns because he’d forgotten the word for right: The Cocksman of San Lucas (was his nickname)) sign of affectionate acknowledgement and relation—like brother, brother. So there you have it. I also realize I’m fifteen years older than you, so can testify that same anos son possible a vivir, come se dice. Ganz gut.
Y ahora—why not take up Finnish, with its terrific non-Indo-European-bog-banter and its 15 to (for finer shadings) 26 (?) noun endings? “The moon which [Robert Grenier has seen skeletal faces in recently?] is still your planet as it was Venus’ before you . . .” And you, and you, etc. Marchons.
Hey Bob—or as Hannah just now says, Hey Jude. How’s Amy doing? What’s happening in Bay Area presumably still existing? Tom Terrific Clark? Read any Good Books lately? You wrote one certainly.
As long time paranoid and distinct depressive “it’s” obviously a way of life but that’s all—whatever “that” is. Back to Heidigger! Hei / digger / digger // I just pulled the trigger / and blew away face in the moon . . .” “This is what humans are like when they just come in from a rainy day . . .” “It jumps up on the chair.” “It does this.” “It jumps down.” Drinks Pepsi. Remember “An ice cold Pepsi / that hurts your teeth”—like have an ice day. “That is so gross (says Willy) putting your fingers in your Pepsi . . .” “God . . .” says Hannah, “I put my finger in my coke and now it stings . . . Let’s see if it does it . . .”
Your tocayo,
Bob
Bob Spelled Backwards
[RC’s footnote] 1 As of September 1, 1989 this will be it. We just heard yesterday mortgage was approved!
•••
LETTER TO PAUL AUSTER
August 17, 1989
Dear Paul,
I feel badly not to have thanked you long ago for your generous gift of your books. They are extremely impressive—and dear! I’ve been reading The Invention of Solitude and so much echoes my own questions of a father, just that mine died when I was four. In any case, the range and perception of your writing is altogether singular. Voila!
The summer’s gone by in a flash and momently we move back to Buffalo, where our new address will be:
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, New York 14207
That says it over-emphatically, but I’m getting used to it—the first place I’ve ever owned there, as it happens, despite 23 years on said job. Incidentally—would anything at SUNY/Buffalo ever interest you? Since John Barth left years ago now, the department has been looking for someone (present company is Raymond Federman) and I’m sure the job could be both attractive and much to your own needs, etc., so you could commute, etc. Anyhow! Meantime we’ve happily seen the Corbetts and so had word of you also. Thinking of mutual friends, I knew Michael Palmer way back when he was George—1963, en route to that Vancouver Poetry Festival. Only yesterday . . .
Thanks again!
My best,
Bob
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
February 15, 1990
Dear Susan,
David’s [David von Schlegell’s] opening sounded great and only wish as ever we might have been there. There are times one feels like a veritable shut-in, but, egocentrically, I’ll be so soon on the road being here the past two months sans action has been a very large blessing.
As you will know, I think, the chair went to Charles [Bernstein] with sufficiently solid backing to make the appointment quite sure. The two appointments now most attractive for the bulk of the people are you and Nate Mackey. Nate can be argued as the black academic/editor/poet the department has never had despite Carlene Polite’s appointment years ago. You have the absolute interest of all the feminists obviously, all the graduate students who knew you as a teacher or simply knew of you as a teacher, and a wide range of people as Myles Slatin who are impressed by your articulate intensity as a scholar as well as by your poetry. Thus Jim Bunn (ex Dean) at the last meeting before the vote argued strongly on your behalf having really just read your work. So too (perversely!) Irving Feldman who has become a great advocate, having just now read your work as well. [Penelope Creeley’s note in margin: He has apparently been in twice to Rita’s office, just to tell her how brilliant he thinks you are, a great genius, a major talent, he says . . . ]
Since the vote for the chair specifically is now so shortly past, politicking had best take a public rest at least, to let that part fade so as to renew the interest in a senior appointment for you as a fresh start come fall. Meantime Bill Warner and others will be keeping the possibility active in the so-called back rooms. To that end, and because the time now is so crowded till May, and the specific dates in March you note are the spring break here as well, it makes most sense to invite you up in the fall, when Charles is here as further support, for a substantial visit of a couple of weeks or whatever is simple for all, i.e., some time sufficient to renew contacts in every sense. There is really a very solid ground in your exceptional genius as a poet, your equally singular brilliance as a scholar, and the fact you’d be literally the only woman poet the department has ever had, thus a determining model in many senses indeed, which the women, both faculty and students, emphatically recognize. Well, you hear me rehearsing—but I do think it’s a very possible business, as do a number, Clare Kahane, Bob Bertholf, Diane Christian, Bill Fischer et al. So.
I am off for a week in Israel (an international conference of poets in Jerusalem which lets me see old friends both in that company (as Holub and Tomlinson) and also in the city)—and from there to England, where I end up in Durham, so get see Peter Quartermain et al. A curious and exhausting busman’s holiday but I brought it on myself and will no doubt enjoy it—but miss being home no matter. Ah well.
Love from us all!
Bob
[Penelope Creeley’s note:]
I’ll call shortly—thanks so much for your letter—I was moved & relieved—so glad you understand. Love & thoughts, Pen.
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
March 17, 1990
Dear Susan,
I think that Talisman interview is immensely useful in every way, clarity, intelligence, all the question of gender and marginalizing—and the particular sense of that Harvard perspect of the time (my time, incidentally, recalling that Matthiessen was the one professor I could speak to comfortably, and that I never recognized Emily Dickinson’s not being in American Renaissance—but I remember asking his permission to discuss Hart Crane in the course on Modern Poetry or his saying in answer to my question that he did not include Pound because he found his politics reprehensible and did not understand his prosody, etc. One of the first communications from Pound was emphasis on fact that he’d got Eliot to override Matthiessen’s advising Reynal Hitchcock not to publish Call Me Ishmael. Anyhow small world indeed.)
What to say of all that zapping about in Israel. One thing was that, confronted with Mount of the Beatitudes and where “He” “walked on water” and having hopeless cold on bus with wall to wall poets of languages too numerous to mention, I began to think Xtianity and its hero hopelessly late and tacky, so that “follow me and I will make you fishers of men . . .” in place he seems to have said same, seemed like all too familiar con, like, follow me and I’ll help you hook the ones eat those fish. Ah well. In that place now somehow all religions get to be cacophony.
Time in England was therefore restoring, especially with horrendous storms and freak weather sweeping the isle—snow in Durham—and return to English, etc. Peter was very good—just utterly clear, usefully dramatic, very well grounded in detail—and really fascinating in the way he located Bunting as instance of a marginalized language against historic particulars as Elizabeth’s slaughter of the north. One felt he could at the end have led the company into battle. Anyhow he made a great and very useful impression on the academic and administrative company, the ones crucial to the Bunting Collection’s prospects.
Here we keep active, like they say, in your beatific behalf—Bob B/, Bill W/, Charles now as well, and the bulk of the dept I do feel. So I think it’s no means over yet in any respect. I think you’ll see for yourself come fall, though I hope there’s chance to see you in Maine again? I am off tomorrow, like a yoyo, proving something of opaque kind. Onward!
Love from us all,
Bob
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
March 31, 1990
Dear Charles,
Things are so fast at the moment a phone would make more sense, but frustrates attempts to say more solidly how great all you have in hand seems to me. Anyhow! As you will know, plans for getting the eastern European visitors over this fall had to slow down to manage the appropriate backup from administration, so now it will be scheduled for spring (with loose-leaf seminar of my responsibility attached). Thanks for the help with Arkadii [Dragomoshchenko], whom I’ll write directly, etc. Meantime I’ve talked by phone with Mark Wallace and all that feels good. I’ll hope to meet him when you come up to introduce Nate Mackey April 23rd. (I’m off again on Monday and not really home for more than two days between then and April 21. Thankfully all the family will go the 13th to LA and SF, so that’s a break.)
I have not thought of anyone specific for the fall myself, but for Susan Howe and possibly Tomaz Salamun, who is to be in the States in the fall. All’s flexible, in short. Also I’ve got a substantial budget from carry-over from this past fiscal year.
Susan’s now in a “clutter” of five candidates for senior appointment (among them Joan Copjec) which purportedly is being offered to the administration for a block appointment(s)—that is, five “lines” at one go. The department is just now voting on “preferences” and is asked to “rank” the five, etc etc. Is that ever familiar. Anyhow I don’t like Susan being again in such a defined competition. I don’t really trust Bill Warner’s support or interest at all—JC is clearly his choice. So during your brief stay, like they say, you might let go a few innuendoes apropos. At least keep him/them honest.
So I’ll look to see you April 23rd. All I’d say re your provisions is use the local Best Western or whatever, because with settling and Emma you will need room and refuge—and people too, I do believe, like to get off the scene. In other words, don’t sign up for all the labors of that order. If someone were, for example, to stay at that Best Western on Delaware, or the Lenox, it would be about $60 a night, and otherwise you could, or they could, come and go from your place easily in some ten minutes—cab or other. Onward!
Love to all,
Bob
P.S. I saw Ron Silliman and also Rae Armantrout in Tucson last week—a jovial time. [^ Also Daphne Marlatt—old friend indeed.] Edward Kamau Brathwaite was also there, and is classically sweet (we’d met years ago when he was still very much a colonial “British” poet). He was on his way to visiting chair at Santa Cruz, thanks to Nate M.
P.P.S. Dates and all have to be your decision, like they say. I’ll be in and out—only substantial absence now in mind is Oct. 1–14 in NM, but not yet confirmed.
•••
Creeley, PO Box 384, Waldoboro, Me. 04572
PLEASE DELIVER TO: CHARLES BERNSTEIN IMMEDIATELY
FROM: ROBERT CREELEY
COMMENTS:
¡ONWARD!
August 21, 1990
Dear Charles,
Many thanks for all the stuff! I think the promo materials for the “Wednesdays” etc is very clear and effective. Likewise the intensity of all the people who will be coming. After a year of pretty explicit quiet, it should get an active and particular company, which is really all one ever wants. Onward!
I talked to Bob yesterday but no mention of the Eastern Europeans possibility, so I gather he has his hands full with other matters and/or nothing’s got through the various administrative holds. In any case, I will bring it up when back and get it all more clear, as well as a present budget status. That ought to make possible some support for the lean sprint months so as to keep the action. That is very happy news about Nate Mackey and my fingers are crossed. If Susan in turn can be included, then that’s truly that.
I hope your settling in is proving simple. Pen was in touch with one of your neighbors as you’ll know about babysitters, and it sounds like Jackie [McGuire] gave you all a royal provision and welcome. Here we are winding down with the various chores of getting things together for return and otherwise provided. We got an ultimate used boat (16 feet) a couple of weeks ago, whose motor works but barely. I had hopes of taking to the high seas but not in this one—at least not yet. I am hoping to persuade a neighbor to overhaul it for us during the winter. There are so many coves and inlets along the immediate coast, it’s a shame not to have simple means to check them out by water. We do have canoe for paddling around, finally the most simple and pleasant of all, as you’ll one day all see we hope. Yesterday we went to proverbial Union Fair, all the midway numbers—wild to see Hannah zapping by in some incredibly G/ torque on “ride” would freak me entirely. Ah youth . . .
Once again, if Mark [Wallace] feels competent to overhaul the computer program, that would be useful indeed. I don’t see need for more than simple situation of the Word Perfect program, filing therein, and clear connection with printer. Then if he can install the modems both in that computer and the one back at our place, I’d think that would be that, although some kind of effective “windows” program for editing would also be very useful.
So we’ll see you shortly. Was that “The drowning woman . . .” really on Page G-8 of the Buffalo News? “She treaded in her underwear.” What next . . .
Our love to you all,
Bob
Hi Jackie! Thanks as ever!
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
June 4, 1991
Dear Bob,
Rumors of my etc have been greatly etc etc. Quantamatum est . . . I’m always impressed at how quickly the news flies, on wings of the great speckled Bromige in this case (?). Well, we all knew he didn’t mean to kill me, so I ain’t gonna die!!!
What a scene that all became, like umpteen kibitzers all crowding for their moment of serious regard. When I’d finished the so-called selection, I had that pleasant waver of question, which I must say these composite opinions have driven from my fading mind entirely. Like, if someone, namely ole B/, proposes to remove 17 count ’em big ones from one’s heart’s coffers and to substitute and/ or add therefore not one, not two, not three, not four but thirty-five, friend, you know he ain’t just whistlin’ dixie . . . Well, I hear ole B/ is aheadin north some point soon, in fact, right to this very place. I am sure we can think of a way to greet him will make him feel right at home, since we share such close concerns, as they say. I think we put him up last time he was here, come to think of it. That’s probably why he took such pains to set me right on Olson.
Ah well . . . Another book “that will please no one” and I care less and less. Meantime those poem/s—I love it I can get two for one page!—are a pleasure, “sees/seeming” sighs! I’d love to have chorus, “Going own/going own, eyes a going own . . .” Meantime I’ll dream on . . .
Love,
Bob
P.S. I’m ok, just postlude pneumonia doldrums, lungs looking like spider webbies—so doctor says I got to ease off the usual manic enterprises. I am therefore safe in the bosom of ma famille whilst all else huffs and puffs.
•••
LETTER TO ALLEN GINSBERG
Robert Creeley
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, N.Y. 14207
Tel 716/875–2108—Fax 716/636–3408
January 1, 1992
Dear Allen,
A very Happy New Year, or else we speak to God personally, like they say. I just saw the enclosed in our local paper last night and since the date you are noted as taking ill is December 21, the solstice no less (and Hannah’s birthday), I’ve got to presume the information of you recuperating in Cooperstown etc is accurate. Remember you up past two hustling cash for Steve Lacy’s company in Boulder, and then up at five to say goodbye to me so generously, I must think it’s time to be simply easier on yourself and/or more thoughtful as to what you need. Well, that you know, but (as like smoking which I seem finally to have managed to stop after getting pneumonia this summer about a week after seeing you) I guess it has to be work to in fact do it. Since you are truly that company most dear to my own ears and heart, do be provident and not simply providence itself. I wish I could see you much more often, but you are certainly always in mind no matter. Onward!
Love as ever,
Bob
•••
FAX TO BARBARA JELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Robert Creeley PRIVATE
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
Tel 716/875–2108
Fax 716/636–3408
March 12, 1992
Barbara Jellow
University of California Press
Dear Barbara,
I wish there might have been chance to see you when I was out there, but it was such a whirlwind visit that nothing seemed possible. Now, as you’ll know, the introduction is done and the text otherwise resolved. So the element most crucial now remaining is the format. Bill told me of conversations there apropos, and of his own wish to keep with the format used in my Selected. I see the obvious virtues of doing that but, as I told him, I am very wary finally of any format that means either a severe reduction of point size (which would make reading difficult and the whole text seemingly pinched (as in Army Bibles etc etc)) or the need for even one instance of broken or run-over lines. Olson loathed the latter, and given I’m here the most specific one to argue for his interests, I must make his objection emphatic and my own completely the same. If you look in the Selected Writings of Charles Olson which I edited in the mid-60s for New Directions, you’ll find the note he provided apropos such lines (which he utterly protested!) after we ran out of all alternatives. Thankfully they were very few. Anyhow, please do keep these two factors much in mind when your own resolution of the format is the measure. I feel so far from things here, in this one respect at least, that I worry the whole business will now prove vulnerable to this one factor and thus the book itself will be hurt. (I’ve already resisted suggestions of 1) a map insert and 2) a page of his handwriting, so I don’t think my fears are ill-founded.) This book has been thus far remarkably distracted by “passing comments,” call them, from those so marginally involved with Olson’s poetry we might as well be using a ouija board for our instruction. Ah well.
When we last corresponded, the best type seemed the Aldus? That was back late October as I recall. I’d be curious now to know what seems most possible to you, i.e., does that 5X7 trim seem best still? This end of things I feel I’ve been too removed from, and yet, particularly for Olson’s work, it’s the absolute sine qua non of it all. If you can give me some present sense of things, I’d be very grateful.
My best as ever,
Bob
Xc. Bill McClung
•••
FAX TO BARBARA JELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Robert Creeley PRIVATE
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
Tel 716/875–2108
Fax 716/636–3408
March 16, 1992
Barbara Jellow, Design
University of California Press
Dear Barbara,
Thanks for your prompt and very helpful letter. I can now see, like they say, the various possibilities very clearly. Given the three options you note #1: keep the same even to typeface; #2: make it different as each poet’s style qualifies; #3: make it the same but different, i.e., change the size and shape, for example, but keep the jacket and binding. Specifically thinking of the Olson Selected, I can see no possibility of an effective use of #1 insofar as neither typeface nor page dimensions can really accommodate his work, whose lines and rhetorical mode are so different than mine, for example. I can’t see how one would avoid a pinchedness right from the beginning.
Option #2 is very attractive to me because it so clearly uses the text itself as the qualifying term instead of fitting the text to a preestablished form. (I am interested to know what other poets are in mind for this series. Zukofsky seems to be moving away, sadly, given the commitment now to Johns Hopkins and the lack of response concerning the possibility of a Selected Writings, etc. Robert Duncan’s Selected is committed to New Directions as far as I know. So what particular authors are in mind? Possibilities such as Milosz or Deguy would only argue that the series per se has no coherence, or simply lumps “poets” as category, hardly an emphasis to the publisher’s interests.) I especially like the format’s being 5–3/4” by 8” in that it would set Olson’s poems very handsomely in all respects, and still stay a comfortably small book. Option #3 would also be acceptable, I think, with the reservations noted (to wit, what is to be the nature of this proposed series of Selected Poems). I think one must know the proposal for the series in general, in short. If Olson and myself are “the series,” then I don’t think we need similar formats to make that evident, being so like the Bobbsey Twins as it’s been. Far better to make distinctions. If there is a present range of poets now in mind so to include, then who are they and what’s the relation of their work one to another? If there is no decisive link, then making the format the only link seems a bit bleak. (I recall from college days a Random House edition that had substantial works of Blake and John Donne in big book, to everyone’s complete consternation. So much for “genre” printing.) So anyhow—Aster continues to seem best and that’s very good news that the “shaped” poems aren’t a big problem. Onward!
My best as ever,
Bob
•••
FAX TO TOM THOMPSON, THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES
Robert Creeley PRIVATE
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
Tel 716/875–2108
Fax 716/636–3408
PLEASE DELIVER TO: Tom Thompson
The National Poetry Series
FROM: Robert Creeley
DATE: May 18, 1992
Dear Tom,
I’ve now had chance to look through all the manuscripts sent, and then to review my initial choices. By and large I found an active competence but an insistent sameness in the rhetorical manner and, equally, in the various “subjects” addressed. Reflection, i.e., “a backward glance,” seemed the common preoccupation. So finally I chose a manuscript altogether exceptional for its prosodic skill and its almost encyclopaedic density of detailing—what an incredible particularist this poet is! I went back to it again and again just for the wildly droll range of its information. Anyhow it’s Gerald Burns, Shorter Poems—hardly an easy manuscript in its typography, the number of poems, or in its characteristic demands on a reader. But in this company, or any, it speaks with an exceptional clarity of means and with a drollness of wit I found emphatically singular.
Sincerely,
Bob
•••
September 25, 1992
Dear Warren,
Many thanks for your lovely book! Not only do I delight as ever in your terrific use of whatever it is I do, but the particular form of this one, its intimate address, so to speak, is lovely. Adeena generously brought it along to the first of the Wednesdays at 4 gatherings. So. My one bleak piece of news is that Jack Clarke died mid-July and Cass is only now beginning to get some purchase on things. They were such old cronies that life without him must be almost unthinkable for her. God knows one had to recognize he was dying, but he was so sweet about it truly no one finally had to deal with it until he was dead. Cass told us his last words were, with a lift in voice and attention,—Hi Ma—, very early morning, a Sunday. There was a solid oldtime funeral and gathering afterwards at the house, so he is still here, god knows, in the common world.
The Poetics Program has started off with a bang, very attractive newcomers indeed. I’ve decided to go back to teaching a course a semester not wanting to be left out. Anyhow they are really attractive, so something’s working for sure. Charles seems a little stretched but why not—he comes in a Tuesday eve and is gone again about the same time Thursday. Felix, incidentally, is an altogether benign baby, exceptionally in this case.
David is staying in Connecticut and Susan seems at times very forlorn, not just that he’s not here, just that the world is isolating and untrustworthy—and men get it all. Ah well! Life, like they say, continues and we all thrive.
Love as ever,
Bob
•••
FAX TO ALLEN GINSBERG
Robert Creeley
P.O. Box 384
Waldoboro, ME 04572
Tel 207/832–6301
PLEASE DELIVER TO: Allen Ginsberg
FROM: Robert Creeley
DATE: June 16, 1993
Dear Allen,
I think you just called apropos the American Academy nominations, but the phone here was fouled up so I didn’t get a clear message, como se dice. Anyhow, I am here, and more or less together—trying, in fact, to write some prefatory note for Robin Blaser’s pending magnum opus to be published by Coachhouse: The Holy Forest. I feel incredibly dumb! Meantime since I’ve got the computer, I’m holding the fort for Willy’s fantasy baseball team and I think he also just called to tell me a player had broken a leg . . . What do I do now??? It’s a lovely day despite. Great to get out of the hassle. Send me if you will what you think makes sense for those nominations—just now my head is empty to put it mildly. Tonight I go read with local company in church in Rockland. Small world! Thank god George managed to sell my so-called papers! Viz, that secures the children’s education, like they say, not to mention my aging back. Onward!
Love as ever,
Bob
•••
FAX TO ALLEN GINSBERG
Robert Creeley
P.O. Box 384
Waldoboro, ME 04572
Tel 207/832–6301
PLEASE DELIVER TO: Allen Ginsberg
FROM: Robert Creeley
DATE: June 18, 1993
Dear Allen,
Sorry to miss your call last night, and also not have called back. I couldn’t locate Terry’s number sadly. Anyhow your suggestions for nominations seem fine to me, with these emphasized in this order: Roi, just that he’s the sole person of that authority either I know or can think of; Carl R/, given his age and significance (It was moving to see how much it meant to Esteban Vicente, who was an elder back at Black Mountain . . . ); Kenneth K/, who would be delighted and is again singular and our generation—and then to Ed Sanders etc, certainly deserving—and I’d also like to start thinking about Susan Howe, who is in her fifties now.—George Minkoff is a book dealer Bertholf suggested back when Peter Howard had done an initial valuation of my papers for Washington U/, St. Louis, and B/ suggested a “second opinion” would be to the point. George’s appraisal doubled the amount and that’s the figure that stuck and which, but for a reduction by a small amount to prove good faith in negotiations, I’ve just got from Stanford. They also have first option on material which accumulates, instead of flat rights to everything—so that will certainly be useful and seems fair. George sold Milosz’s archive among others. He lives near Great Barrington and is in and out of NYC a lot. Severely crippled, which doesn’t seem to hang him up. He’s been trying to sell the stuff since ’91, and given the market, did very damn well I think. I certainly recommend him. Onward!
Love,
Bob
•••
E-MAIL TO PETER GIZZI
12-Oct-1993 16:34:09.42
From: UBVMS::CREELEY
To: IN%“pgizzi@brownum.brown.edu” CREELEY
CC: CREELEY
Subj: Correction!!!
Dear Peter,
Cancel previous advice insofar as I have error in identifying my own “userid”—such is AGE!!! Well, let’s start again, using “our” previous IN%” up to which all was well, and even “creeley” was on the mark, but shortly thereafter “we” “fucked up,” as follows: creeley@vbums SHOULD read creeley@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu—which I think you knew anyhow, looking at this page of report re inability of your dearly anticipated letter’s failure to ARRIVE. Help, viz, “Will help arrive IN TIME . . . .? Tune in next week, etc etc.”
Your humble idiot savage,
Bob
•••
E-MAIL TO CHARLES BERNSTEIN
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 1994 09:03:28 -0500 (EST)
From: CREELEY@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: GG/s
Cc: CREELEY@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Dear Charles,
I hope to get to the reading but can’t make the meal.
Bob
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207–2748
March 5, 1994
Dear Eric,
It’s good to hear from you and to know all’s well. Odd to think the fellow in Helsinki has finally managed to complete that thesis! I recall he was a student of yours? You’re a nice man indeed.
All’s well here, just hectic. I was three times to the Old World this fall and winter, and it finally got to be simply work, e.g., a four day trip to Germany with one day in Frankfurt, one in Munich, and the other two in the air. I got the so-called Beineke Prize from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, which thankfully included money. More happy was a week’s stay in Paris for action at the Pompidou Center and various other places, and despite the drear time of year I had happy company with a range of friends there, and unexpectedly the Waldrops also. But travelling is not the excitement it had been. The endless need to keep track of stuff, the isolation from family—I see its point less and less.
The enclosure is the latest remarkable production from the graduate students. What a wild range of publications they are turning out! Meantime Charles is seemingly surviving his endless commuting. Susan is much missed. Dennis is in and out. Ray stays as jovial as ever. Bob I don’t now see at all. I fear we parted company absolutely last spring and the sale of my stuff to Stanford not long after put a finish to that business as well. God knows what he wants but I have no longer any interest in his scheming. Sad that he should so attach the Duncan material to his own sad ambitions. Yuk! Forgive me for my own obsession, and best wishes for all your undertakings—and to Marion and Arthur! Onward . . .
All best,
Bob
•••
FAX TO STEVE LACY AND IRENE AEBI
Robert Creeley
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207–2748
Tel 716/875–2108
Fax 716/645–6276
PLEASE DELIVER TO: Steve Lacy/Irene Aebi
FROM: Robert Creeley
DATE: November 13, 1994
Dear Steve and Irene,
I’ve now talked with Monique Goldstein and we’ve set up a date for Buffalo as follows: April 19th at the Calumet Arts Cafe, 54 West Chippewa, Buffalo, N.Y. 14202 (prop. Mark Goldman), a small sort of lounge club with tables and a small raised stand, so it should be simple enough to work in. As and when, phone there is 716–855–2220. I’ve got $1500 for your flat fee (from the university scene) and Mark G/ will take care of the hotel (I said, a suite). The place has jazz in and out, and other music, so it’s again I think fair enough. Not much else simply available for one night I fear. So a Buffalo first! Terrific!! I’ll try to get a check in advance if I can, but since it would only be a few days before you’re here, I’ll need US pickup address for you to cover period April 5 to 18 or thereabouts. Anyhow I am delighted it can work out. Hope it sounds ok at your end.
Love to you both,
Bob
Also just now saw the space again and it looks fine for your needs—and the prop. is delighted. So there you have it. Onward!
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
December 12, 1994
Dear Jim,
Thanks for that generous idea! Like Xmas already. Anyhow I’d be delighted to try to figure something with you, and have some fun, like they say. Just now I’m down here in this curious “Atlantic Center for the Arts” which proves remarkably comfortable, though having family here would be terrific (but kids are finishing up fall school semester—they’ll all be here Friday.)
Do you have any ideas about what we could focus on—viz, do? I could either move from your images, else I suppose the other way (as with Mabel)—or we could try for a focus we could both start with, and then put together what comes of it in any way makes sense.
Otherwise length (of this charming instance) is intimidating, i.e., that’s a lot in there—do you think we have to make that long, i.e., the text? Blank pages are always useful! “Give the reader some room . . .” But time enough to resolve same. I’ll be down here till December 23, then back to Buffalo for the Xmas chaos, then in and out for most of the spring till mid-May, when I (and all of us then together once school’s out mid-June) will go to Auckland (their winter!) for a Fulbright (about three months). That would be an excellent time for me to get something done.
Is one of your sons in active music ensemble??? I was taking Will up for guitar lesson (at university) and checking out the stuff on a bulletin board, was quite sure I saw a Dine!
Love to you all as ever,
Bob
•••
Robert Creeley PRIVATE
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207–2748
Tel 716/875–2108
Fax 716/645–6276
PLEASE DELIVER TO: Peggy Fox, Managing Editor [New Directions]
FROM: Robert Creeley
DATE: January 26, 1995
SUBJECT: Translator for Pound’s Work into Chinese
Dear Peggy,
There is presently a fellow here I much respect the energy and intelligence of, specifically in our Poetics Program—but finally, and far more to the point, an active person on the world. His name is Yunte Huang and he tells me he has the request of a Chinese publisher in Beijing to translate texts of Pound’s for publication there. Best you check with him for specifics, but I want here to emphasize my sense that he is capable and would do a good job. He says he can supply good references from Chinese scholars, both there as well as here. Please let me know as you can what seems the best way for him now to proceed. Thanks as ever for your help—and a very Happy New Year (or else)!
All my best,
Bob
•••
FAX TO PETER QUARTERMAIN/PETER GLASSGOLD
[February 24, 1995]
Dear Peter,
Following is a note to Peter Glassgold, who’s been anxious to get up here for some time, particularly with respect to his recent take on Boethius published by SUN & MOON etc. I’ve been musing on the fact of your questions ever since I got them, for which many heartfelt thanks. Because your address there is inquiry, not invective or recrimination, I think one might proceed in some manner of good faith to attempt to face the implications more directly. The atmosphere has become intolerable with respect to the holdings in the Poetry Room, just that “access” becomes a paranoid preoccupation of the graduate students. When Richard Fyffe was here from Connecticut, he was altogether bemused by fact the seminar people asked him not once but three times if, should they be able to get there, would he allow them to see Olson’s papers. Anyhow . . .
My sense would be to have some across the board discussion of what such editing questions/problems are, presuming Bob’s [Robert Bertholf’s] acting in good faith whatever the fact, and therefore certainly including him (though I much wonder if he’d show)—and so forth. I’d undertake to pay your expenses in coming, and we could certainly give you some occasion beyond this necessarily dreary prospect. Though, goddamnit, it’s legitimate defense of a dead dear friend’s writing and the demand that its transmission and representation be fairly and openly arbitrated. Ah well . . .
So anyhow that’s what’s in mind, and here’s the note/fax to Peter Glassgold:
PLEASE DELIVER TO: Peter Glassgold
FROM: Robert Creeley
DATE: February 24, 1995
SUBJECT: Visit to Buffalo
Dear Peter,
Fanny and Susan Howe were here last evening for dinner, and Susan told me of your recent call. I apologize for what must have seemed my ignoring of your interest in coming, but, as she will have told you, the meeting at which I thought to resolve the possibility proved one in which we discussed the dilemmas of delayed matching funds from the administration—and now we’ve learned that the $15,000 in question has been cut entirely. So you see our dilemma.
However, I’d like to invite you for some time in the coming year, using resources from my chair funds, if $500 will suffice. It’s a small sum but at least I can commit it without problem at this time. If agreeable, I’d then refer you to Charles Bernstein for appropriate working out of schedule.
There is another matter which much concerns me, and which might be discussed as a part of the occasion for your visit as well. That is Peter Quartermain’s disturbing review of copy-editing questions in the first forty pages of New Directions’ edition of Robert Duncan’s Selected Poems. What he makes clear was tacitly evident from the University of California Press reports of textual errors and questions in the pages of Bob’s copy for the first volume of their Duncan Collected. Now, however, simply that Quartermain’s material has been distributed on the Net through Buffalo’s Poetics Program Listserve, and because it’s far more publicly evident than other questioning has been, the whole issue of what is responsible textual editing and what particularly qualifies the editor’s and the publisher’s role in an edition such as Duncan’s Selected constitutes a very present concern, both for graduate students and faculty, and for all others relating. I recall you had offered your own capabilities in reviewing such copy to UC/Press, sadly without response. But clearly you have thought about it all, and, since you are ND’s editor for the publication in question, your own stake in the matter is very clear. Therefore I’d like to suggest a public discussion of some sort, as informal or seminar-like as seems comfortable, with Bob (I would certainly think to ask him and I presume it would be in his interest to clarify his procedures and resolutions) and Peter Quartermain, and someone from UC/Press, i.e., Doris or whoever she thinks to the point. I just can’t believe, for anyone’s interest or integrity, it can all be let slide any longer. (J. [James Laughlin], for example, must be up the wall to recognize he’s publishing such a questionable text, presuming he knows about it.) Anyhow, enough said. If you can give me some prompt answer as to your own willingness to participate, then I’ll continue with the invitations aforesaid. In the meantime, do rest assured I’ll get you here whatever the particulars, and always with your own effective book the primary focus and occasion. Ok. . . .
So there you have it. I’ll let you know what he answers. It’s a long shot at best, but I can’t see the use in doing nothing. Or of simply trying to “fight” Bertholf, for that matter. There’s got to be a way of identifying his behaviour sufficiently to persuade him alternatives do exist. Onward!
All best to you both as ever,
Bob
•••
E-MAIL TO BENJAMIN FRIEDLANDER
To: Benjamin Friedlander
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 19:31:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: CREELEY@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Olson
Dear Ben,
Don Allen called today to talk about the Olson Collected. He’s found a solid piece by George Butterick he thinks will make an appropriate intro, so that’s happy news. He also asked about your interest, so I told him you had been looking over the mis etc etc. (Forgive typos! I am just anxious to keep in touch what with all else—and thanks to you both from Hannah & the gang for the great card! She is just home today thankfully.) Anyhow Don wants to talk to you and has only your old phone number—will that work? Otherwise let me know how to call you and I’ll get that info to him. He wants to suggest you be co-editors, rather than have simple editorial fee—as co-editors I’d expect you’d split the royalties from the book which I get, incidentally, from the Selected.
My elders’ advice wd be to opt for co—so much more the point than small $$$ you’d otherwise get. Time enough. We are all dizzy from stress, like they say. Dig it . . .
Love to you both,
Bob
•••
E-MAIL TO PETER GIZZI AND ELIZABETH WILLIS
Date: 2/15/96 3:49 AM
From: CREELEY@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Dear Peter and Liz,
Belated but heartfelt Happy New Year to you both, and my apologies for being so long silent. Days have gone by in a veritable flash, and it’s only now things begin to regain some usable pace. Nothing at all hopeless or depressed, just classic “things to do today,” so that at one point last fall I was ten days in England, from Newcastle to Exeter to London and back again, and reading on eight of them. Help. When I would be at last home, then it was time to deal with family needs and chores of various plugs, notes and articles. So that’s what’s been up. This spring, thankfully, I am much less on the road and intend to keep it that way. For example, I was trying to get out to SF to see my new granddaughter (Miranda Rose!) born late August, and it wasn’t until November that there was literally a weekend free to do it. Then when I was there, I had a day with her and my terrific daughter, and spent the other in meetings with UC Press etc etc. So that’s why I wasn’t in touch with you or any other friends there.
Anyhow, you dig it, like they say. Days now we just sit and take a walk in the park with newly acquired Sophie, a bouvier de flandres, cow dog, terrific—now a year after Maggie’s sad death. Hannah and Will are both thriving, Will now at City Honors which he very much likes—and Hannah in characteristic good spirits at Nichols. Again thinking of our life: we had Gustaf Sobin as guest, here about ten (I had just written intro for his reading), then lunch with Susan and him, back to firehouse for more conversation, then out to u/ for reading, back then here for family (he’d gone off with Kristin and company) Valentine’s Day and then to Hannah’s musical evening at Nichols, and now it’s dawn again. Fair enough.
Incidentally I’m doing a so-called project at City Honors thanks to a Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Writers Award—to put them on line with a journal for the writers. Ken Sherwood is my ally and person for Just Buffalo’s interests in it all—so I’ll let you know when it’s up and running.
Meantime I did a long poem (and/or thirteen stanzas for the thirteen etchings) for a collaboration with Alex Katz—images of branches, flower heads—very sweet. Otherwise bits and pieces as time permits. Like annual Valentine poem! I always admired Louis Zukofsky’s great poems apropos.
How did Mills work out for Liz? We miss your news too, god knows. It would be lovely to amble along the beach with you both. Ah well . . . We saw Nate and Lew in the bookstore a few days ago. I sense their life is really demanding. Then Nate is such a sweet kid. Anyhow things keep going, and now we’re gearing up for the Duncan fest. So there you have it.
This year going by has really been one I’ve had to recognize I could not keep doing scenes like that biz in England, nor could I manage all the usual mail or demand as I had. It’s literally age—not a tottering, or failure, just increasing inability to run up hills, stay up talking all night, or hear clearly in a crowded restaurant. There is also the to be expected death of friends so sadly insistent, as Larry’s [Larry Eigner], as another friend from the time in San Francisco years ago, and earlier another, my closest friend from days in college, and Franco B/, and on and on. So one turns to the obituaries almost without thinking, or other (surviving!) friends call to report a person’s death one knew only casually, like last night, a call to say Caroline Lowell had died—etc. Anyhow we are here despite, really, and I look forward indeed to seeing you and your dissertation as and when. I do hope life there for you both proves solid and simply GOOD. Ok!
Our love,
Bob
•••
LETTER TO KURT VONNEGUT
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
May 23, 1996
Dear Kurt Vonnegut,
A few years ago when your opera was being put on in Buffalo, Allen Ginsberg brought you over to our place for a curious breakfast of somewhat burnt toast and black coffee—with my dear daughter Hannah then about eight in attendance. It was a good-natured meeting which neither of us forgot. So, when a school friend said her favorite writer was you, Hannah said she had met you here in Buffalo which the friend wouldn’t believe. Would you therefore do me this very particular favor, i.e., write a couple of sentences to say that Hannah had mentioned her respect for your work and that you have whatever reaction, like they say. They are twelve, hopeless time for girls in classic day school lacking alternative—and it simply matters to be believed when what one says is true.
Otherwise I wish that academy would somehow one day get a real life. I have nominated Amiri Baraka over and over but as Jeannie Kim told me after she’d left the scene, they will never agree. Anyhow onward! Viz., let’s start our own club.
My best,
Robert Creeley
P.S. Hannah’s friend’s name is Kerry Docherty, and I’ve enclosed the proverbial stamped addressed envelope to save bother.
•••
LETTER TO KURT VONNEGUT
June 17, 1996
Dear Kurt Vonnegut,
That was such a sweet and generous reply in support of dear Hannah, and it did the job, like they say, with absolute effect. As it happens, it came on the friend’s birthday, so it was all usefully converted into a genial extra “suitable for framing”. So anyhow everyone was delighted and grateful—and thanks for coming through with such promptness and consummate wit. You are not a terrific writer for nothing! Anytime I can do anything of use in return, you got it.
Love from Hannah and me,
Robert Creeley
•••
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 11:26:09 -0700
From: Robert Creeley creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu
Organization: University at Buffalo, SUNY
To: simonp@pipeline.com
Subject: Re: Hi Bob!
simonp@pipeline.com wrote:
>Hi Bob!—just thought to drop you this swift e note to raise a glass to
>your big seven oh etc (what again?) but being as you are currently being
>feted . . . “if I my add my two cents worth” . . . —fond regards—love -
>blessings etc—as ever Simon
>love to all dear friends. . . .
Dear Simon,
Actually my birthday was back in May but this is the institutional version, which proves very good natured thank god. Only glitch has been Roi’s no show and then asking from LA (for christ’s sake) should he still come. So yesterday I got to read twice so as not to leave patient Gil S/ in proverbial 2 hour hole. Cosas de la vida no doubt—but it was frankly much like a spoiled kid’s leaning on the company’s good nature and he obviously disappointed a lot of black kids who turned out hoping to hear them. I guess the honkies win in spite of themselves. Onward!
Anyhow it’s been great. Almost worth being 70!
Love as ever,
Bob
—
Robert Creeley, 64 Amherst Street, Buffalo, NY 14207
Tel 716 875 2108 * Fax 716 875 0751
•••
[October 1996]
Dear Tom,
Thinking I had your address ready to “paste,” I got this from previous undertaking:
Wislawa Szymborska, a self-effacing
73-year-old Polish poet who collects trashy postcards because
she says trash has no pretensions . . .
Enough of that! It is very good to hear from you in the midst of all else. I’ve been on the road again, just back from curious two day visit with Georg Baselitz with whom I’ll do modest collaboration, now possible even in Deutschland. So onward. We keep walking around that wee pond by the Albright Knox with our dog going ape over the foraging squirrels—days are much as there, sharper, colder, great detailing light. All feels well—just rushed, which is fair enough. When the winter comes, it will all slow down of necessity. Meantime both Will and Hannah are in good spirits in their respective schools though the new headmaster at Hannah’s seems a complete idiot. I suppose that will keep him uselessly out of it for a time.
My birthday is in May, as you thought. This is simply an institutional aftershock—strictly for the public. Pen wanted Bobbie to come to be the wife, but there wasn’t anyone for me. I saw Bobbie a couple of weeks ago very happily, and Kate—looking a lot better and certainly having a much more real life with a job and simply being out with daily people. Anselm as always a pleasure. I didn’t see Ed or Jenny, being there just two days, one for work, the other for Kate, and then home.—I’ll say hello to Jim for you. He’s just coming in for that night after being in India (?). Will those drums never cease.
A friend from NZ, Murray Edmond, is presently staying with Lyn H/ I think, and will be here in a couple of weeks, so he will be able to say how things seem—he’s a very dear man.
Do write as you can. I savor your clarity. Ok!
Love to you all three from all of us,
Bob
•••
[Sunday, November 10, 1996]
Dear Marjorie,
I feel badly about not having written you about your very impressive book, and the generous reading you give me in it. The whole address is a pleasure, and you make Wittgenstein the presence and influence I’ve always felt him to be. Curiously he in some sense “grew on” me—from Louis’ quotations and also from that slim memoir of Norman Malcolm’s—and rumors I’d hear that he’d been a gardener for a time in Cornell (!). He was so usefully antithetical to all the usual propositions of “meaning” and it’s his own I’d finally most value in every so-called sense: If you give it a meaning, it has a meaning. I also dig what comes out as the English of his “last words”—tell them it’s been wonderful. About a year or so ago I had happy company with Bruce Duffy at a writers’ business at Bennington, and love the “fiction” he makes of W/s life, so that the fiction and the fact begin to meld: The World as I Found it. Most pleasant is fact he had never been to Europe nor did he speak German. Only the imagination is real!
Anyhow you do me proud, likewise “away”—up, up & away—or really that dour avoidance of my childhood I’d occasionally hear: he is not dead, he is just away. Oh yeah . . .
Take care! I must say being seventy gets to feel like an institution in itself, and it was GREAT to have Gil’s company. Onward!
Love,
Bob
•••
E-MAIL TO BENJAMIN FRIEDLANDER
[April 7, 1997]
To: bef@ACSU.Buffalo.EDU
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Allen
Dear Ben,
Both sides of that exchange are so charming I do think you should post it if it won’t simply offend—it’s just so sweet and simple! I went down to the memorial this morning, like watching the Buddhists once again coopt—but one can hardly blame them. But it sure gets tedious sitting in those tacky places as they pin up the decor and the bells start in and the whining, muttering chants go on and on. Poor old Allen was stashed in a box up front meanwhile—and it all did get a bit tendentious and pious, till Roi really changed the communal mind by saying Allen had called him last week to say he was dying, then asked if Roi needed any money. Anyhow I am very glad I got there. He was terrific and will be forever. Onward!
Pen and Michele will hope to get to your reading tomorrow night but I am committed to Daemon College visit that evening, so cannot. But will hope to see you here Wednesday, and to deliver the Boldereff/Olson letters into your hands at last!
Love to you both,
Bob
•••
E-MAIL TO BENJAMIN FRIEDLANDER
[April 19, 1997]
To: bef@ACSU.Buffalo.EDU
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Zukofsky
Dear Ben,
Thanks for your generous note. So much is swirling in mind at this point, much compacted by Allen Ginsberg’s sad death—and therefore question as to what any of it means, not bitterly at all—just what. I take it all work on whatever with the particular purchase and appetite each are given—like Pound’s Kung Canto 13: They have all answered correctly, that is, each according to his nature—or however it goes. I was so much part of a company whose habits, really from Paul Blackburn to Louis and including Olson and Duncan—were so founded on reference and its delights, that I contrived my own “echoes” and had also to recognize what intelligence I had was not of this kind (which is very much why Williams was so important for me, since he was “like” me etc.) It was always both mysterious and terrific that each of these dear people both respected and looked to me for response—and took me seriously far beyond the call of friendship or of duty. I was just now looking at what Louis, of all people, had to say of me (of all people), in an altogether unlikely review of THE WHIP (which was small book published on a pittance by Gael Turnbull’s Migrant Press in California, with our daughter Kirsten’s drawing on the cover) in Poetry May 1958. Reviewing was not his habit, believe me. He does it by terrific sequence of quotes, so characteristic—and what he says is really the point we’re both making:
[Last paragraph] “The poems are to be praised for not counting up to the “conceit” of rhetoric which a generation or so ago misnamed “metaphysical,” whose thought presumed more hope than the voice of a limited body.”
But you’ll need also the first! (He uses a quote as the title: “What I come to do is partial . . .”)
“As he says in his preface, Robert Creeley’s honest metaphysical intention is: “—there is no use in counting. Nor more, say, to live than what there is, to live. I want the poem as close to this fact as I can bring it; or it, me.” It is like Spinoza’s definition of honesty—“I call that honest which men who live under the guidance of reason praise and which is not opposed to the making of friendship.” With some disposition like that in mind Creeley can happily say: “I write poems because it pleases me, very much—I think that is true.”
The T-shirts will be ready by Wednesday!
Love to you both,
Bob
•••
To: Charles Bernstein <bernstei@bway.net>
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: LZ@UB
At 12:25 PM 4/24/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Spent the morning with Ira Nadel, so very much thinking of all you are
>doing: truly great work this week and I want to say, even though you know
>it, how grateful I am that you have undertaken to do this LZ semester.
>Please leave a t-shirt for me!
>Love,
>Charles
Dear Charles,
Thanks for the well wishes! Just before the battle, brother . . . I haven’t finally a clue as to what to expect or who will show up. Well, we’ll see. Meantime I’m off to introduce Charles Simic. I am getting very versatile in your absence. Onward!
Love to all,
Bob
I’ll get Marilyn to send you one of the terrific t-shirts. Here’s hoping same brings them in if all else fails . . .
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207–2748
May 31, 1997
Dear Denny,
I am way behind as usual, but at least I do have a new manuscript, now duly with Peggy Fox at ND and we spoke of you doing a cover if agreeable—so that’s a very happy prospect. Thinking of those great images you enclosed in your February letter, that one of the lone house is a knockout. The book’s title is Life & Death —so you get the point, like they say. There’d be no need for irony at all. Viz, I said “Life & Death,” I mean etc etc etc. “It’s about time . . .” So think of what you’d figure appropriate.
All’s well here, just as ever hectic. At this moment Pen is out with neighborhood crew planting some 40 trees (!) on newly opened up traffic islands close by that she persuaded persons first to get the concrete off, then to add fill and topsoil to, and finally to provide trees for (London plane and crab apple). Finally they’ll paint the fronts of the ConRail bridges that front on same with underpass coming into our neck of the proverbial (and possibly now more actual) “woods.” This neighborhood is not unlike where I was on Fargo, just if anything a bit more poor—so what she’s managed is heroic indeed. Too, our neighbors are by no means tree enthusiasts, one suggesting that they all be painted white up to height of eight feet so as to prevent people from hiding back of them to jump out—and another saying they were worse than dogs, what with all the mess they made—and a branch could drop down and kill you. Ah well. I’ll be in Maine from late June on pretty much, with Pen back here for Will to do internship at local radio station—but back and forth too. Be great to see you. Onward!
Our love,
Bob
•••
LETTER TO WILLIAM WADSWORTH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
February 21, 1999
Dear Bill Wadsworth,
Thanks for your thoughtful letter. At this age I have no battle with the Academy nor would I in any sense welcome one. The distance I feel from its conduct is a fact of years and habit for us both, and while I wish you well indeed, I would not anticipate that we’d now find much company with one another, even wanting it.
Particularly with respect to the book club, I see it as yet another threat to the independent bookseller, already battered by chains like Barnes and Noble and online distributors as Amazon. I would not think that the Academy itself undertakes to stock and distribute the books determined by the club. But even in such a circumstance, it would constitute yet another threat to the local bookstore. If it applies to a usual commercial distributor to supply the books ordered through the club, then it acts simply as a feeder for that hostile interest. Far better to help identify and link such regional and local centers though a program of publicizing and networking than to add to their competition. Here in Buffalo, for example, Talking Leaves is a great asset for all poets and readers alike. Much of what I say here comes from a conversation with its owner, and I am sure his sentiments and mine agree with other such centers across the country, whether Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee or Groliers in Cambridge. I fear that the Academy proposes to enter the bookselling business in all too ingenuous a manner—hence my demur with respect to becoming a nominator.
Again thank you for your care in this matter. I wish you good luck.
Sincerely,
Robert Creeley
•••
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 14:17:03 -0500
From: creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Impressive!
Dear Barry,
As ever your impressively patient and clear take on that fact of words is very moving—especially as relates (like they say) to LZ. My own relation to Basic English came at the boarding school I went to in NH, Holderness, where an English teacher, Mr. Abbey, set us to work translating sections of Joyce’s The Dubliners into basic English—it must have been the late 30s or very early 40s. I know I much hoped to connect with I.A. Richards at Harvard (where I went the summer of 1943) but never even got to see him, as I recall—his was the active class for Celtic and such. Anyhow the process (BE) fascinated me—the way it made so evident what words per se were doing, and could do. When I first wrote Pound (then in St. Elizabeth’s), his first reply was, “What hv yu read?”—to which I answered, Ogden et al. To that he answered “Ogden rather dead,” and said further, he was the kind of person who expects one to translate “Basic English” for every foreigner one meets, and why wasn’t “seem” a legitimate passive form for “see”—etc etc. Anyhow Basic English (as well as Korzybski) had more action in my so-called generation than many now recall. Onward!
Love t yu all,
Bob
—
64 Amherst Street, Buffalo, N.Y. 14207
Tel 716 875 2108 * Fax 716 875 0751
•••
PO Box 384
Waldoboro, ME 04572
August 2, 2000
Dear Sarah,
Here’s an AOL installation disc that may prove helpful. I am determined to get you guys back online! So anyhow all’s well here if pining for your email . . . Pen came up for a little over a week and we had happy chance to relax together. Helen is in good spirits and she’s got her scene back together, so that’s a useful support. I’ve just taken it as easy as possible, enjoying the pleasures of the place which stays very dearly substantial. We have had a lot of rain which has been good news for all the new trees and shrubs. Onward!
I’ve looked at your video many times now—what a delight! It keeps all that incredible time very actual. So thanks again and again. I realize Miranda’s birthday is fast approaching so we’ll be zapping something out there in her honor shortly. Meantime I hope all’s well indeed—it’s great to know you are in such a good news place. Ok!
Love from us all to you both,
Dad
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
January 31, 2001
Dear Francesco,
What a generous and perceptive gift! It has the lovely resonance of Olson’s drawing way back then, trying to make clear to me what he was finding in the Mayan materials while living in Campeche, etc. That you did it in Oaxaca (I remember spending time there in a lovely ramshackle inn on the edges of town with a great old swimming pool geese had totally befouled) makes it all the more precious! So thanks again and again.
It was lovely seeing you there at that reading—as ever I wish there were not the rush but one day. You mentioned a portrait, which I’d forever be honored to sit for—I’ll be coming briefly to NYC May 16—then again for work at NYU June 10–21 (though home for Hannah’s graduation (!) the 12th). In any case, I’ll hope something proves simple—and we get to talk while you work!
Love,
Bob
P.S. I wrote this poem for Gregory just after Raymond told me he had died. Better late than never. He was something, like they say.
FOR GREGORY CORSO
I’ll miss you,
who did better than I did
at keeping the faith of poets,
staying true.
It’s as if you couldn’t
do otherwise,
had always an appetite
waiting to lead.
You kept to the high road
of canny vision,
let the rest of us
find our own provision.
Ruthless, friends felt,
you might take everything.
Nothing was safe from you.
You did what you wanted.
Yet, safe in your words, your poems,
their humor could hold me.
The wit, the articulate
gathering rhythms,
all made a common sense
of the archaic wonders.
You pulled from nowhere the kingly chair.
You sat alone there.
[CP II, 589]
•••
64 Amherst Street
Buffalo, NY 14207
February 13, 2001
Dear Joel,
I’ve been dragging since I was last in touch and hopes to look through stuff have faded in classic winter doldrums here plus more than usually distracting departmental business. Anyhow here is a dub of the tape I’d mentioned—the Helsinki reading which begins with Anselm Hollo’s taped intro (sound seems to shift between right and left at outset but soon enough steadies—and is fine. Later on side B there is some usual babble from the genial bar scene, but I can certainly live with that (and did for years), so see what you think.) Anyhow I do like it—and it covers a range rare in any other reading I can quickly think of. Once things ease, I’ll take a look for other stuff. I know there is a great early tape at the Buffalo Public Library with Gwendolyn Brooks introducing. That would be great to have up. So Happy (post) Valentine’s Day! Again, you got a great thing going.
Love,
Bob
•••
October 1, 2001
Henry Reath, President
Board of Directors
Academy of American Poets
588 Broadway, Suite 1203
New York, N.Y. 10012–3210
Dear Henry,
As you will know, the situation of the Chancellors is at best ill defined. On the one hand, they seem barely included in the significant determinations of the Academy. On the other, they are that group within the Academy most identified by public interest and report. They have the responsibility of representing the Academy’s particular presence in the public arena, not only among the general company of poets but also in the membership of the Academy at large and in the far less definable community of those who read and otherwise engage in the contemporary activities of poetry. Put bluntly, they take the heat—and when such an event as that involving William Wadsworth occurs, it is they who have to front the response from that same public sector.
I will not rehearse here the various petitions and communications I have received because I think you are well aware of them. You will recall that my first response was to write both you and Bill so as to ascertain what had happened, thus to be able to answer those who felt the Board of Directors’ action had been tantamount to a palace coup. As the situation grew more demanding of my own time and attention, I had to recognize that all the Chancellors seemed as ignorant of the facts as did I. In short, none apparently had been given any warning of what was to happen and none, to my own knowledge, had been applied to for advice or for judgment.
In that unpleasant way, then, the Chancellors were forced to recognize that they counted not at all in the real life of the Academy, that, like children, they were subject to the determinations of the Board without being able to take part in those judgments or to offer even an opinion. I cannot emphasize sufficiently how offensive and unacceptable such a situation is for me and for others in the same circumstance. To be asked by the Board of Directors to represent its commitment to poetry and then to be deemed not even significant enough to be told clearly what is happening at the time specific creates an impression very hard to ignore. The Executive Director is that person in the Academy’s structure most particular to the Chancellors’ function. To keep the Chancellors so uninformed and unaware of the removal of that person argues a tacit contempt on the part of the Board for those poets it has otherwise proposed as its public representatives.
Sincerely,
Robert Creeley
•••
E-MAIL TO SARAH CREELEY
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2002 21:18:21 -0400
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: Sarah Creeley <SarahCreeley@aol.com>
Subject: Happy Birthday for Miranda
Dear Sarah,
Just a quick note to say we mailed off birthday cheer for Miranda yesterday priority mail, so it should show up there (we hope) more or less on time. One thing: there’s a sort of feathery business in a little backpack in said booty, and it needs not to be pulled out too vigorously (we also hope). So onward—ourselves back to Buffalo on Tuesday, hard to believe the summer’s gone so fast. You must be getting ready to teach—and Miranda to learn!
All our love,
Dad
•••
E-MAIL TO WILL CREELEY
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 20:54:02 -0400
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: Cappio16@aol.com
Subject: Onward!
Dear Will,
That sounds to have been a very happy scene with you and Ceci, so that’s a pleasure for sure. Meantime I just got this:
“I found a copy of my drivers license on this web site, they have a copy of every driver license in the USA in their database.
Looks familiar!
Love,
Dad
•••
E-MAIL TO UB ENGLISH DEPARTMENT LISTSERV
Subject: Re: Office Hours for fall 2002
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 12:31:21 -0400
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: UB English Department List <ENGLISH@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
Dear Bill,
Just for nostalgia’s sake, please tell Marilyn (and anyone else trying to locate me) that I am most simply reached by email:
creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu
Or at the Poetry Collection:
University at Buffalo, 420 Capen Hall, Box 602200, Buffalo, NY 14260–2200 Thanks!
Best as ever,
Bob
—
Poetry Collection/Rare Books
University at Buffalo
420 Capen Hall, Box 602200
Buffalo, NY 14260–2200
•••
Subject: Re: Fwd: All’s well!
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 09:09:08 -0400
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: PenHC@aol.com
Dear love,
This setup has been cranky but I got your second message and will contrive to open the first by going to your sent mail on AOL etc. All went well last evening albeit I was really tired at that point. But I had good visits with everyone from Anne to Jane and Anselm—so that was a pleasure. Today we see Kate and then this evening Anselm and Jane again for dinner. Then Steve gets me to the airport tomorrow morning—and that’s it.
Meantime I forwarded to you a note I got from Colin Still to the effect they’ll arrive in Waldoboro the evening of the 10th—and will be ready to go the morning of the 11th etc. I still want not to start up on the 9th—I’ll need that day to get back together plus check to make sure I have what I need for Maine and all. Anyhow!
I’ll call Stan Brakhage today—they are apparently leaving for Vancouver on the 10th. His health is not at all good but they think that will be the simpler place now to be. So.
All my love,
Robert
PenHC@aol.com wrote:
>I guess I just sent this back to myself last night.
>Lovely morn again here, off to get Sophie pee sample to vet, etc
>Hope yr day is good, seeing Kate and all
>XXXXXXP
•••
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 14:15:39 -0400
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: Memories—and thanks!
Dear Barry,
Thanks for all your useful news. Connecticut College ought to do well by Asa. Best information I have had is from bright son of an old New Mexico friend, who really had a solid time there. I also very much like Charles Hartman—so there must be company. We’ll hope to see you in Providence as proves simple for you. Meantime here’s the quote as Will had it in the valediction (at the Gallatin Commencement at Avery Fisher Hall, May 12 ’03):
“. . . Finally, leaving this company that has been so terrifically sustaining and empowering for me, I am reminded of a quote given to me in one of the first Gallatin classes I took, the poet Barrett Watten’s immaculately precise observation that “the train is ceaselessly reinventing the station.”
“I don’t remember the class, or even the context, but I have thought often of the implications of those words, and because I am not sure if I am the train, the station, the passenger, the conductor, or all of it, I have measured my progress against myself with that simple, clean illumination. “The train is ceaselessly reinventing the station.” My fellow classmates, there’s no way to go but to go, nowhere to be but where you are.”
All aboard!
Best to you
Bob
•••
Subject: Selected Letters
File: OppenIntroedit.DOC36K
Thu July 17, 2003 7:42 AM
Dear Rod,
Thanks for the quick reassurance. Thinking of the Selected Letters, it would seem some general ‘map’ or sense of focus or parameter would be the first need. The book will certainly ‘tell a story,’ perhaps the most useful that can be told, thinking of UCP’s selection of Olson’s letters—or Gregory’s, just out from ND. Here’s a link from Stanford (in the unlikely event you’ve not seen it), which lists the names of correspondents collected in the three series of correspondences they have:
http://dynaweb.oac.cdlib.org/dynaweb/ead/stanford/mss/m0662/
I am not sure what Stanford has for carbons etc. Best to get in touch with Bill McPheron, the curator specific:
William McPheron <mcpheron@leland.Stanford.EDU>
There will be family (letters from Burma to my sister and mother in the 40s) and then continuing friends, Donald Berlin, Jake Leed et al—and the range of those specific to my so-called life as a writer, with its defining periods and persons, e.g., living abroad, New Mexico, etc. So again some sort of overall ‘map’ in mind would be useful, serving as center for the whole. Since May of this year, I’ve got something like 1100 emails and written almost 800. In the correspondence with Olson in the early 50s, we managed to fill ten volumes in something just over two years.
So obviously your selection will have to make a selective pattern out of all the bulk, not preempt its concerns but rather make evident the diversity and also the insistent continuities—simply what matters (and to whom) over fifty years.
For a means of getting some overall ‘picture,’ there’s the drear Faas biography—which is in no way my pleasure—but he did determined legwork in getting to basic materials (letters, etc.) and to persons relating. It’s his ‘reading’ of it all which I necessarily abhor, but nonetheless his ‘parameters’ may be helpful. Then there are takes like Tom Clark’s ‘American Common Place’—my own favorite just that it cuts to the chase so usefully.
So anyhow please depend on me to be of whatever help I can. We are just now moving to Providence but one hopes, once there, that the proverbial “things” will soon come together. I am very grateful to you (all) for taking on this responsibility and, again, any use I can be, please tell me.
Best to all,
Bob
P.S. I’ll attach the introduction I did for the Oppen Selected—somehow the hardest part!
•••
P.O. Box 2584
Providence, RI 02906
September 22, 2003
Dear Carl,
Thanks so much for your generous note. I had worried that mine for your birthday might have been both too hasty and too meager—and so your saying you were struck by its insight is terrific. It’s hardly an “essay” as you’ll see—I enclose my email to Steve Dickison and the note itself, both written in a B&B in Berkeley. I had to go to Stanford, having signed up for the celebration there of Robert D/s and Denise L/s correspondence.
Anyhow you flatter me by suggesting said “piece” might be of use as an introduction to a collection of your new and selected poems. I’d question that it can carry that responsibility but, if deadlines permit, I could perhaps tinker with it and come up with a page and a half or so that might. See what you think. In any case, you are welcome to whatever works.
I’ve been teaching here at Brown since September. It feels very good-natured and a welcome shift from what had become the all too familiar habits of Buffalo. There I felt as if I were hanging around just for the paycheck, which of course I was. Here I am new in town, usefully, and have just enough to do to keep significant company with colleagues, who are excellent—C. D. Wright, Forrest Gander, Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop, etc. I also like being back in an active city—and close indeed to where I came from in Massachusetts. So all’s in fine spirits accordingly.
Again, I am sorry I missed your great celebration. Onward!
Love,
Bob
•••
Dec. 1, 2003
Dear Ammiel,
This is Olson speaking of Parker in retrospect, like they say—about twenty years after—and after Charlie Parker had been dead for thirteen years. If the question is, did Olson either listen to or pick up on Charlie Parker during his (Parker’s) lifetime, the answer, as far as I know, is still no. I never recall him listening to any of the records at BMC—there was a pleasant shedlike provision for same where I listened to them a lot, particularly those Miles D/ “Dear Old Stockholm,” “When Lights Are Low,” etc etc. (I’d been listening to Parker since the mid-40s, for example.) By the late sixties Parker is both public legend (like Pollock) and also primary example of “improvisation,” and Olson would have been well aware of that from me and a tacit host of others. Too, you see the context of the questions is whether or no there was an active “poetics” being worked out at BMC to which Duncan and I still obtained, and the Parker reference is making clear that no, it was a practice, the event, which was the action and center—as it was with Dylan in the 60s. Ok!
Best as ever,
Bob
>Ammiel Alcalay wrote:
>
>thanks for thinking but i actually (!) found the olson quote i had asked
>you guys about—it appears in MAPS #4:
>
>Voice: Right. Well, in a sense it’s not even relevant to discuss as
>poetry. Are you—in other words, the question I have is, are you and
>Creeley and Duncan—I mean is this a new movement? Are you creating,
>are you at all together?
>
>Olson: No, I think that whole “Black Mountain poet” thing is a lot of
>bullshit. I mean, actually, it was created by the editor, the famous
>editor of that anthology for Grove Press, Mr. Allen, where he divided—
>he did a very—but it was a terrible mistake made. He created those
>sections—Black Mountain, San Francisco, Beat, New York, New, Young,
>huh? Oh, I mean, imagine, just for the hear of it, “Young.” Hear the
>insult, if you’re young. You’re suddenly classified into a thing—by
>one of the great editors, the founder of Evergreen Review. And the first
>issues of Evergreen, the first four issues of Evergreen were, really,
>first rate. But he made a big mistake; he made a topological error. I
>mean he had the wrong topology. And he created something which is very
>unhappy. For example, poets who just can’t get us straight because they
>think we form a sort of club or a claque or a gang or something. And
>that there was a poetics? Ha ha. Boy, there was no poetic. It was
>Charlie Parker. Literally, it was Charlie Parker. he was the Bob Dylan
>of the fifties.
>
>this is from a transcription of a talk given by olson at beloit college,
>march 26, 1968
>
—
P.O. Box 2584, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401 383 0740; Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
Subject: Re: precious breath
From: Robert Creeley
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004:12:46 –0400
To: Angelica Clark <eclark@mindspring.com>
Dear Hearts,
All’s well blessedly and we did get Tom’s NIGHT SKY which seemed only moments ago, but I realize it’s almost weeks. Just the time here has gone by in the veritable flash, very good-naturedly, be it said. Anyhow thanks very much for the wry and securing truth of said poems. It’s a horrible time except for the proverbial happy few I guess as ever. Meaning us, incidentally. I spend 40 hours a day on the computer checking the latest news, all obviously to no avail—like trying to scratch itch I can’t reach. Maybe we should all go to NZ.
As to breath, when finally I got catscan and checkup from doctor here, first eyeing of same led to stern statement that he thought I must have lung cancer, but blessedly comparison with older catscans hastily obtained from Buffalo giving a five year evidence showed him naught had really changed, thank god. Leaving, I ventured comment that I could now look forward to dying of old age, but he said, no, everybody dies of something. You can see I’ve finally come home.
Love to you both,
Bob
—
POBox 2584, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401 383 0740 * Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 09:21:22 -0400
To: Anselm Berrigan <ab@poetryproject.com>
Subject: Steve Lacy Memorial
Dear Anselm,
Might there be some chance for a Steve Lacy respect in the fall there—he was so good to poets! Anyhow I am sure Anne Waldman would be in, and me—and we could take it from there. Perhaps Cecil Taylor would show up, just that Steve played with him those many years ago. We are just now back from busman’s holiday in France where I happily saw your mother as ’twere in dream passing through Paris—she is sure something, forever!
Love to you and yours, friend,
Bob
—
PO Box 384, Waldoboro, ME 04572
Tel: 207 832 6301 * Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
E-MAIL TO DONALD REVELL
Subj: Re: from Don Revell
Date: 11/6/2004 3:32:33 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu
To: Utopical@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear Don,
Thanks for the great story! Just back from visit to not one but two family cemeteries. Small world! Anyhow it seemed appropriate and thanks for advice of terrific Rev. K/.
Love to you all,
Bob
OLD STORY
from The Diary of Francis Kilvert
One bell wouldn’t ring loud enough.
So they beat the bell to hell, Max,
with an axe, show it who’s boss,
boss. Me, I dreamt I dwelt in
someplace one could relax
but I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
You got a song, man, sing it.
You got a bell, man, ring it.
[CP II, 631]
Utopical@aol.com wrote:
dear Bob,
Reading at the bottom of the garden in my post-election funk, I came to this passage in the tender Diary of Francis Kilvert—
“One bell did not ring loud enough to satisfy the people so they took an axe up to the bell and beat the bell with the axe till they beat it all to pieces.”
I could not resist the urge to share such crazy apt occasion!
love,
Don
—
POBox 2584, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401 383 0740 * Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2005 16:09:09 -0500
To: Anselm Berrigan <ab@poetryproject.com>
Subject: St Michael’s
Dear Anselm,
Just about there—lacking one email address for JOHN GIORNO, somehow lost in the chaos. Do you know it? I’ve asked other friends if not, so should have things together by tomorrow in any case. Meantime, Pen had been talking to pleasant mail guy at local post office about Ted, and it seems he went to the same school, St Michael’s, and particularly knew Ted’s younger brother Rickey. Pen was saying they should have a plaque on the house and he was saying, Ted was their most famous person ever. Anyhow today he loaned me his copy of ST MICHAEL’S, 1859–1959, wherein there is a picture of group with your grandmother included and also pleasant reference to “the Berrigan brothers” (second of the two pdf files, last paragraph; the first pdf is the beginning of the article)—see files attached. So you are part of a noble tradition as all always knew. Onward!
Love to you both,
Bob
—
PO Box 2584, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401 383 0740 * Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:15:14 -0500
To: Anselm Berrigan <ab@poetryproject.com>
Subject: Re: St Michael’s
Dear Anselm,
To start with last things first, IF something can be made of the file I’d sent, so much the better—really let them make it material and/or grist for their mill, rather than only dogged repro, etc. It also saves me labor of de-framing said image—which I can still do if needed (and get off as pdf file etc etc).
Meantime Irene emails to say (what she’d said earlier but not confirmed) that GEORGE LEWIS will be one of the gang that evening, anywhere in that second half, i.e., she writes:
“Is the Program already printed? Its sounds very nice. There is only one important omission & that is George Lewis, who lives in New-York & teaches at Columbia, got a Mc-Arthur last year & has been very active in Steve’s music for many years. So I invited him & he has no problem with Roswell, they are actually good friends & equally giants! Maybe I mentioned this to you, I want to do a few short tunes with him & Depending on Jeremy’s disposition (he forgot his music here) something together with George. Also I had the idea that Douglas Dunn could dance with the two trombones. I left a message at his answering machine. So please include George if its not too late. I am also staying at his place: [address and telephone redacted]. I’ll be there the 18th.”
So now you know everything. As to “program,” I had not thought there’d be one specific other than possible ‘scoresheet’ for list of people, etc. Anyhow you’re the boss for whatever.
As to piano, now that Dan Tepfer cannot be there, I don’t know if anyone thinks to use it—viz it looks like trombones are it, plus bass and soprano sax. I’ll check again with Irene just to make sure she doesn’t have someone popping up to play same.
One day you are again in Providence, you should meet the genial fellow in the post office for sense of St Michael’s and all. He was particular friend of Ted’s younger brother, his classmate. Anyhow he’s a bright good-natured man and characteristically has some great jazz cd playing on a boombox he keeps just beside him back of the counter.
Then today happily I got proofs of the terrific COLLECTED from UC/Press, so as to write blurb for same—which will be my honor. It really is wonderful to see it all of a piece.
Love to you both,
Bob
P.S. Thanks very much for John G/s email address. That’s it.
—
PO Box 2584, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401 383 0740 * Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
From: Robert Creeley <creeley@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 19:47:42 -0500
To: Anselm Berrigan <ab@poetryproject.com>
Subject: Re: We’re good
Dear Anselm,
God bless you, as one says in Providence—and Gary, the fellow in the post-office, was pleased you had seen the photo of Ted’s mother and all and says he’d like to show you around when you are able to visit and all. Ted’s Collected is just glorious—and the work you all put in on it makes it absolutely shine. Wow!
Late breaking news is that Irene has brought a sculptor into the action on the 19th (who is also putting her up there)—I’ll hope to get spelling of his name etc shortly, but this can identify him for the moment. Thanks!!
Love to you both,
Bob
—
PO Box 2584, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401 383 0740 * Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
Date: January 16, 2005 3:59:53 PM EST (CA)
To: lisajarnot <jarnot@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: greetings
Dear Lisa,
I’m obsessed with Whittier’s “Snowbound” at the moment, up here in aerie attic looking out small window to edge of harbor over Foxpoint roofs—feels much like Gloucester, Mass. There’s a storm headed this way, so terrific memories of West Acton childhood come back—Whittier’s Haverhill cannot be more than a short distance east (35.6 miles I see from useful Yahoo)—anyhow for the season:
http://www.darsie.net/library/whittier_snowbound.html
Ah nostalgia . . . I see Hamburg is staying consistent:
Tonight Tomorrow Tomorrow night
14°F
Snow likely. Low 14F. Winds NN W at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 80%. 2 to 4 inches of snow expected . . .
St Agnes Eve time. Lovely to think of you in the British Museum. As you can, let me know what you think of Kitaj’s wall-hanging:
“Visually dominating Wilson’s vast lobby is a tapestry woven from one of R. B. Kitaj’s seminal images, the 1970s landscape If Not, Not. This strange picture, at once jumbled and ethereal, was inspired by both T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and the Holocaust, a typical Kitaj-conflation. “These fragments have I shored against my ruin,” Eliot wrote in his poem. As we all know, the shoring up of fragments of literary and historical reference in fact proved Kitaj’s ruin at the hand of London’s inhospitable press. In anger and bitterness, longtime London-based expatriate Kitaj has since decamped to Los Angeles.
“Kitaj’s wall hanging is the largest single loom tapestry to be woven this century, and required 7,000 hours of work. Enormous fan that I am of the artist and this particular painting (which hangs in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, where the tapestry was made), I have to say that it sorely loses in translation—mainly because the tonal gradations are jagged—although I stand by it as the perfect image for a magnificent setting.”
Kitaj in the British Library
It’s lovely to think of you there—and happy!
Love to you both,
Bob
—
PO Box 2584, Providence, RI 02906
Phone: 401 383 0740 * Email: Robert_Creeley@brown.edu
•••
E-MAIL TO MICHAEL KELLEHER
From: “Creeley, Robert” <Robert_Creeley@brown.edu>
Date: March 7, 2005 11:44:29 AM EST
To: “Michael Kelleher” <michaelkelleher@adelphia.net>
Subject: RE: Hello &
Dear Mike,
While doing a workshop in Wilmington, NC mid-February, I collapsed for want of oxygen getting into my blood, fact of pulmonary fibrosis, a longtime condition, together with secondary bacterial infection that was too much to handle—anyhow I am now on permanent oxygen feed and am getting used to the logistics. So far, simple enough—though travel by plane with the necessary provision gets more complicated, etc. Thankfully this place is ideal for sorting it all out—very easy house and no pressure to do more than enjoy the very glorious physical scene. A couple of days ago we drove down to the border (the Rio Grande) with Mexico, some sixty miles distant—would that the world were all so specific!
Best as ever,
Bob
—
PO Box 816, Marfa, TX 79843–0816
Cell: 716 435 1460 * Email Robert_Creeley@brown.edu