If I were writing this

by Robert Creeley

New poetry by one of America's most acclaimed and respected poets. The poems of If I Were Writing This, Robert Creeley's first major collection since the highly praised Life & Death (1998), have an "aching sweetness" that speak to the preciousness of life as the poet both faces his own mortality and simultaneously looks on a world suddenly more precarious and fragile. In these poems there is longing, a twinge of regret sometimes, a bit of nostalgia, the sadness of passing time, but finally no regrets and no self-pity, just an understanding that this is what it is to be human, an acknowledgment that life is uncertain but also bracing and positive. Creeley himself "Given the bleak vulnerability of the world and of our own country's dogmatic commitment to violence, what can either poet or poetry do? For one thing, insist on feelinginsist on witnessinsist on being here, in this 'phenomenal world,' as Lawrence called it, 'which is raging and yet apart.' Age brings experience, not wisdom; age makes time actualeach day anotheruntil there is no more. These poems have been my company, my solace, my feelings, my heart. When they cannot speak, it will all be silence."

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

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

[Kinsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed with this book. It seemed that Creeley was less like himself here. It was harder for me to be able to relate to the poems here, because they were all dedicated to people and very specific. Name dropping all over the place made me feel very alienated from the text.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not the Robert Creeley of Pieces. In fact, I'm at a loss to locate Creeley anywhere in this collection. There's Edna St Vincent Millay. There's Charles Baudelaire. But Robert Creeley is nowhere to be found...

"All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood..."

Was three long mountains and a wood...
The emptying disposition stood,
The empty, echoing mind struck dumb,
The body's loss of kingdom come,
Of suns, too many, long gone down,
And on that place precise she'd stood
Little was left to tell of time
Except the proof she traced a line
To make a poem so with my eyes...
of the horizon, thin and fine...
[...]

- Millay's Echoes, pg. 22

* * *

At the edge, fledgling,
hypocrite reader, mon frere,
mon semblable, there
you are me?

- For You, pg. 39

The title If I were writing this is realized by the poet's ostensible absence. By considering his absence, the poet is confronts his mortality.
In the first half of the collection, Creeley writes in the style of Millay and Baudelaire, and thereby initiates himself to their status (dead poets). The second half is a tribute to those poets who will outlive Creeley, such as John Taggart, Keith and Rosemarie Waldrop...

Remember when
we all were ten
and had again
what's always been -

Or if we were,
no fear was there
to cause some stir
or be elsewhere -

Because it's when
all thoughts occur
to say again
we're where we were.

- Memory, for Keith and Rosemarie, pg. 84

* * *

If ever there is
if ever, if ever
there is, if ever there is.

If ever there is
other than war, other
than where war was, if ever there is.

If ever there is
no war, no more war, no other than us
where war was, where it was.

No more war, dear brother,
no more, no more war
if ever there is.

- John's Song, for John Taggart, pg. 93

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the idea of Creeley taking the concept of famous poems such as "When I heard the learned Astronomer" and claiming these classics in oftentimes dramatically differing ways from the original, making them his own. Truly a fun concept.

This collection especially cements my love for the craft, and furthermore the conversations that occur between poets throughout the years, decades, centuries.

[Chris Lilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of three parts: parts one and two were absolutely inert to my mind - nursery rhymish nonsense. Part three has poems about memory, about ageing, about something. When he has a narrative he's worth reading. When he doesn't, he isn't.

[Milo · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was one poem in this volume that I liked. The remainder, at best, did not resonate with me.

[armghan ahmad · Rating 3 out of 5]

“wisdom had at best a transient credit”

creeley is strongest when he entreaties. there is very little of that in this collection. at the most, he beseeches once or twice

[Sabrina Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked a few and some parts of the poems. It didn't draw me to read more like other poetry books. but I guess that's a personal preference.

[Maxfield Francis Goldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t like it

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Robert Creeley's poetry. But not this book. This was Creeley's last book of poetry published before he died, and it feels like it. His poems have the tone of looking back over a life lived. Titles like "Memory" (twice), "Yesterdays", and "Life" are a strong clue.

Most of the poems have a dedication. If they aren't dedicated to a particular person the poem may be named for someone. It's like Creeley wanted to make sure to have a poem for everyone that was important in his life. The reminiscent tone could be a vibrant one, with lots of imagery and detail, but instead it was very specific that only the person he is writing to would get the references. Here's an example a short poem called "There (2)" for Doug Messerli:

Well if ever,
Then when never --

House's round,
Sound's sound

Here's where
Comes there

If you do,
They will too.

Playing with sound, yes, but near meaningless to the reader. I find it too vague. Maybe Doug knows what Creeley is referencing.

The poem titled for the book, "If I Were Writing This" wasn't the best poem. Perhaps an intriguing title, but I would choose "The Way", the opening poem, or "Wild Nights, Wild Nights" as his best in this collection. Other than those two there wasn't much to call good. I have this sense that these got published because of his name. If I wrote some of these exact poems with my unknown name and tried to get published, it wouldn't happen. So a couple out of roughly 75, not good odds. Creeley was working on another book of poetry that was published posthumously, unless there's a dramatic change in style, I'm not going to visit it. Instead will stick to his earlier, better works.

Book rating: 2 stars.

[Acolyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

giving creeley a second chance...well worth the return. for every flipped page, there's Memory then Memory, again, and The Way. creeley is sane, intelligent, and has taste. i thought him at first pedestrian, but this had me looking for hands at crosswalks, for old sad ladies happy to bear purses heavy w/ tears.

[Emong (emilio) Wi (yacat) · Rating 3 out of 5]

If i'm reading a book of poem and then the feeling of wanting to rip-off every good lines i come across arise often enough, I know for sure i'm reading a good book. I felt that feeling often enough while reading this book. I can't relate to some of the poems because it's pretty much an old man's poem and I'm not that old. It's still good though.

[Brandon Barrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lacks punch, overly sentimental, bland at points-given the bulk of his output i think i can overlook this one.