The Charm

by Robert Creeley

"The majority of these poems were first collected in two limited editions, The Charm and Divisions, designed and printed by Walter Hamady and published by the Perishable Press Ltd." -- copyright pageWriting 23; the Writing Series edited by Donald Allen

Genres: Poetry

97 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P. Capen Professor of Poetry and the Humanities at State University of New York at Buffalo, and lived in Waldoboro, Maine, Buffalo, New York and Providence, Rhode Island, where he taught at Brown University. He was a recipient of the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was much beloved as a generous presence in many poets' lives.

Reviews

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creeley is sometimes confusing, sometimes perplexing, but other times wonderful and his outlook on the world is fascinating.

In this collection of early poems, you can see that Creeley is still a poet-in-progress. However, the evidence of the influence of Wallace Stevens is quite clear although he already displays vestiges of his own voice here.

My favorite poem was probably the last one.

A fragment
On the street I am met with constant hostility
And I would have finally nothing else around me
Except my children who are trained to love
And whom I intend to leave as relics of my intentions

[Paul Secor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not really a review - just a couple of my favorite poems from this collection:

los guitaristas

The music is a dance
for the ones who don't dance, it is

a wiggle, obscene, beginning with the
hips, and ascending forthwith

to the mind.


old song

Take off your clothes, love,
And come to me.

Soon will the sun be breaking
Over yon sea.

And all of our hairs be white, love,
For aught we do

And all our nights be one, love,
For all we knew.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poems are amazing. And the thread running through the beginning poems, dealing with a road, and role of a road in bringing people together. I like this, and I like the poems that deal with water, especially the point where a jar is referred to as a way of giving a shape to water. The next poem is about the shape of a stone!

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Upon reading Robert Creeley for the first time, I was reminded of Rae Armantrout. Indeed, many of their poems are short, stark, and profound. My first reading was a later collection by Creeley. And, upon reading an earlier collection, I think it may be fair to say that I prefer his later work.

There is, however, evidence of his emerging style within this collection. One poem in particular, The Changes, seemed more characteristic of his later work...

People don't act
like they act
in real life
in real life. They

are slower
and record the passive changes
of atmosphere.
- The Changes

I was amused by a poem called "You've Tried the World, Try Jesus". Perhaps because I've read many surrealist (or surrealist-inspired) poetry, and recognized in this poem traces of surrealism - in the denouncement of prevailing mythology (Christianity), in the imagery...

We laughed when he sat down at the piano
and it melted all over him.
We laughed later in the stew
we ate him in.

We laughed on the way home.
At that point he was inside us.
But now we are crying
and God won't hide us.
- You've Tried the World, Try Jesus

Many of the poems focused on the female anatomy. I'm not a prude, but I found nothing in these "female anatomy" poems to redeem the author's misogyny. The poems that fall under this category include The Apology, Alba, and The Prejudice (among others)...

I think to compose a sonnet
on ladies with no clothes. A

graciousness to them
of course.
- The Apology


Your tits are rosy in the dawn
albeit the smallness of them.
Your lips are red and bright with love
albeit I lie upon them.
- Alba


There is a despair one comes to,
awkwardly, in never having known
apple-breasted women.
- The Prejudice

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read much Creeley, but there are a lot of good poems in this collection of early work. (And a lot of weak poems too, but that's par for poetry collections.)