The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

by Robert Creeley

Book Overview

"The subtlest feeling for the measure that I encounter anywhere except in the verses of Ezra Pound."--William Carlos Williams "It is a study, how Creeley lands syntax down the alley, and his vocabulary--pure English--to hit meters and rhymes all of which are spares and strikes."--Charles Olson "Robert Creeley's poetry is as basic and necessary as the air we breathe; as hospitable, plain and open as our continent itself."--John Ashbery "Robert Creeley has created a noble body of poetry that extends the work of his predecessors Pound, Williams, Zukofsky, and Olson, and provides like them a method for his successors in exploring our new American poetic consciousness."--Allen Ginsberg "Creeley is a touchstone for me-a measure of what poetry is. He is a genius of the sensorium as Kerouac was and a master of the ear as is Miles Davis. He is a carver in space like Van Gogh."--Michael McClure

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520042433
• ISBN13: 9780520042438
• Release Date: February 1983
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

an innovator

Using simple phrases and a lot of white space, Robert Creeley is a innovator of modern verse that suffuses mystery into the mundune. He is straightforward, spare, uses very few metaphors. He is an absolute master of measure, using the sound of the words and the pauses in between to create beautiful, haunting verse. It is difficult to be cerebral while reading his work, the poetry never explains or describe but is made to be experienced as a bodily phenomenon. It engages a quieter, deeper more subtle appreciation challenging for a modern readership used to instant gratifications.

Robert Creeley will one your eyes

Out of all of my books it is the only one that for over 15 years I have read something from everyday. I think the sign of a good book is one that you can open randomly and always be turned around by the words before you.

The Line Breaks

these poems and the silence surrounding them are uncanny. I know no other word for it. he makes ordinary statements sound interesting because of his uncanny phrasing and subtle line breaks. you can learn more about writing from an hour spent with creeley's work than with just about anyone else, except ashbery.