Life and Death

by Robert Creeley

In 1999 Robert Creeley received the prestigious Bollingen Prize in Poetry and was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Both honors made specific notes of his experimental style, his long influence, and his ongoing importance. Creeley's 1998 collection, Life & Death , now available as a New Direction paperback, is the capstone of a career that has poignantly combined "linguistic abstraction with specificity of time and place." (R.D. Pohl, Buffalo News )

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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

[Russ]

Bob Creeley was to poetry what Einstein was to physics

[Nazifa Islam]

I honestly can't remember the last time I was this bored by a book of poetry. I'll often not love someone's style or feel disconnected from their subject matter, but boredom is very uncommon. There are some lovely lines sprinkled throughout, but this was a very difficult collection to get through.

[Benjamin]

some really stunning moments, some of Creeley at his best where he reflects on human connection, what populates a mind, how to view the self as a subject

But also some absolute failures in here, like “Pictures” is one of the worst poems I’ve ever read. A few moments of old guy poet syndrome.

[Kathleen]

From "Histoire de Florida"

You thought
you were writing
about
what you felt

You've left it out
Your love
your life
your home

your wife
You've
left her
out

No one is one
No one's alone
No world's that small
No life

You left it out

(16-17)

[Loocuh Frayshure]

There are just so few poets that can make my brain sing ike Robert Creeley can.

[Antonio Sacin]

Better than i thought it would be.

[Phil]

Another gentle and genteel work of genius who demonstrates he clearly had his powers up to the end.

[John]

PPE 7/23/08

[R.K. Cowles]

3 1/2 stars