On Earth

by Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley, one of the most significant American poets of the twentieth century, helped define an emerging counter-tradition to the prevailing literary establishment—a postwar poetry originating with Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky and expanding through the lives and works of Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, and others. When Robert Creeley died in March 2005, he was working on what was to be his final book of poetry. In addition to more than thirty new poems, many touching on the twin themes of memory and presence, this moving collection includes the text of the last paper Creeley gave—an essay exploring the late verse of Walt Whitman. Together, the essay and the poems are a retrospective on aging and the resilience of memory that includes tender elegies to old friends, the settling of old scores, and reflective poems on mortality and its influence on his craft. On Earth reminds us what has made Robert Creeley one of the most important and affectionately regarded poets of our time.

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction

100 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2006

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

[Brandon]

Not a particularly strong book, but if I was to list two strengths of Creeley's posthumously collected final work, I would list some chosen excerpts from his essay on Walt Whitman, "Reflections on Whitman in Age" (below), and the following poem, "Wish":

I am
transformed into a clam.

I will
be very, very still.

So natural be,
and never 'me'

alone so far from home
a stone

would end it all
but for the tall

enduring tree,
the sea,

the sky
and I.

###

Creeley on his life (in poetry) and of his searching Whitman's late lines for insight (hereto referring "By that Long Scan of Waves"): "One needs something wherewith to make place for whatever a life has been, its human summary if nothing else. Did it matter? Was it all phantasmagoria? Who was finally there? The roll and turn of the physical waves, their ceaseless repetition, the seeming return of each so particular, the same and yet not the same--this is the 'call', recall (recoil), he has come to, an indeterminate spill of memories 'By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing.' But one hopes to have been included even so, to have mattered, taken place, been part of, done--as one says in this utterly merciless country--something."

And finally, near the end of the essay, a quote, in a kind of summation, from Robert Duncan's "A Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar": "It is across great scars of wrong/ I reach toward the song of kindred men/ and strike again the naked string/ old Whitman sang from."

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was haunting, sad, and beautiful book of poems and an essay. There is a touching afterward written by Penelope Creeley, who I believe was his wife. She starts the acknowledgements page with "Robert died at sunrise on March 20,2005, in Odessa, Texas."

[Russ]

This is the poetry of the man that changed what poetry is--

[Kerfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The very first poem I ever had published was a shovel poem based on a line from Robert Creeley. The simplicity of his language is deceptive. A lot hovers over, under, and between the words. He is always asking questions--the answers, if any exist, are almost incidental. it's a good framework on which to hang your own ruminations.

"On Earth" contains Creeley's last poems, and an essay he wrote right before his death on the poems of Walt Whitman's old age. I'm not the biggest fan of Whitman, but Creeley, in writing from his own similar vantage point, offers rich commentary and insight into Whitman's words.

"Things close down in age, like stores, like lights going off, like a world disappearing in a vacancy one had not thought might happen....One sits and waits..."

The poetry also, as one would expect, touches on mortality with directness, clarity, and grace.

Which one are you
and who would know.
Which way
would you have come this way

And what's behind,
beside, before.
If there are more,
why are there more.

The circle continues without a reply. Creeley leaves us with much to think about--still watchful, thoughtful, alert--still very much alive.

[Derek Emerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always enjoyed Creeley's sparse, clear poetry, but this book was too uneven. It was put together after his death, which is always a debatable exercise. Many reflections on aging and at times he slips with lines such as "Life is like a river. A river with beginning or end" found in same poem (A Full Cup) which includes small gems: "What I did, I did finally because I had to/whether from need of my own or that of others,/It is finally impossible to live and work only for pay." I would direct readers back to his "Selected Poems."

[Sameen Shakya · Rating 5 out of 5]

On Earth by Robert Creeley is his last poetry book and it shows.

Mind you, I don't mean that his poetic prowess had lessened or aged. No. The man's words are as sharp as they've ever been. What I mean is that when reading this book, it's very clear to see that Creeley was much preoccupied with death.

This was a man staring at his own demise and looking back at the life he had lived. That makes for a fascinating book which this is.

[Shashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful

[Maggie Koger · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review of this book in Magill Book Reviews as carried by EBSCO / Academic Search Premier. (by Margaret A. Dodson)

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my thing. The essay on Whitman was very interesting, though.

[Garrett Dunnington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal, demiturgic, visionary. A deep reflection of american beauty and always in reference to Whitman.

[Leia Penina · Rating 1 out of 5]

When age becomes the body, I think is the idea that controls these poems. I wanted to like it but I couldn't--his early poems are so much more than this last book. Sadness.

[Ada · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5