Echoes

by Robert Creeley

In his new collection of poems, Robert Creeley continues to explore the limits and resonances, public and personal, of age. Indeed, the title itself, Echoes, recurs throughout his poetry of the last two decades. Thus Sonnets speaks out against the waste of human violence and dogmatism (Come round again the banal/belligerence almost a/flatulent echo of times), while the book's closing sequence, Roman Sketchbook, contemplates with wit and affection the measure of one's literal body in echoing time and place. Creeley as ever articulates the givens of life, its daily fact and possibility, with careful, concise invention. What wind's echo, uplifted spirit? Archaic feelings flood the body. Ah! accomplished.

Genres: Poetry

116 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

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

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

TRANSLATION


You have all the time been
here if not seen, not thought
of as present, for when I
looked I saw nothing, when
I looked again, you had
returned. This echo, sweet
spring, makes a human sound
you have no need of, facts
so precede, but you hear, you
hear it, must feel the intent
wetness, mushy. I melt again
into your ample presence.

* * *

ECHO


Entire memory
hangs tree
in mind to see
a bird be -

bu now puts stutter
to work, shutters
the windows, shudders,
sits and mutters -

because can't
go back, still
can't get
out. Still can't.

* * *

ECHO


White light blocked
impulse of repose like
Wouldn't you tell me
what you were doing Couldn't
I go where you go Faith
you kept secretly because it
had no other place to be
eyeball's simple hole wherein
'the gold gathered the
glow around it' All you
said you wanted fainted
All the ways to say No

* * *

HERE AND NOW


Never other than this unless
is counted sudden, demanded
sense of falling or a loud,
inexplicable yell just back
of ears, or if the tangible
seeming world rears up dis-
torted, bites hands that would
feeds it, can feel no agreeable
sensation in the subject's hard-
ly learned vocabulary of social
moves, agreements, mores -
then up shit creek sans paddle.

* * *

THE CUP


Who had thought
echo precedent,

shadow the seen
thing, action

reflective -
whose thought was

consequential,
itself an act, a

walking round rim
to see what's within.

* * *

GNOMIC VERSES


LOOP

Down the road Up the hill Into the house
Over the wall Under the bed After the fact
By the way Out of the woods Behind the times
In front of the door Between the lines Along the path


ECHO

In the way it was in the street
it was in the back it was
in the house it was in the room
it was in the dark it was


FAT FATE

Be at That this
Come as If when
Stay or Soon then
Ever happen It will


LOOK

Particular pleasures weather measures or
Dimestore delights faced with such sights


HERE

Outstretched innocence
Implacable distance
Lend me a hand
See if it reaches


TIME

Of right Of wrong Of up Of down
Of who Of how Of when Of one
Of then Of if Of in Of out
Of feel Of friend Of it Of now


MORAL

Now the inevitable
As in tales of woe
The inexorable toll
It takes, it takes.


EAT

Head on backwards
Face front neck's
Pivot bunched flesh
Drops jowled brunch.


TOFFEE

Little bit patted pulled
Stretched set let cool.


CASE

Whenas To for
If where From in
Past place Stated want
Gain granted Planned or


HAVE A HEART

Have heart Find head
Feel pattern Be wed
Smell water See sand
Oh boy Ain't life grand


OH OH

Now and then
here and there
Everywhere
On and on


WINTER

Season's upon us
Weather alarms us
Snow riot peace
Leave struck fist.


DUTY

Let little Linda allow litigation
Foster faith's fantasy famously
And answer all apt allegations
Handmake Harold's homework handsomely


GOTCHA

Passion's particulars
Steamy hands
Unwashed warmth
One night stands


WEST ACTON SUMMER

Cat's rats, Mother's brother
Vacation's patience, loud clouds
Fields far, seize trees
School's rules, friends tend
Lawn's form, barn's beams
Hay's daze, swallow follow
Sun's sunk, moon mends
Echo's ending, begin again


FAR

"Far be it from Harry to alter the sense of drama
inherent in the almighty tuxedo..."

"Far be it from Harry"
Sit next to Mary
See how the Other
Follows your Mother


PAT'S

Pat's place
Pattern's face
Aberrant fact
Change that


FOUR'S

Four's forms
Back and forth
Feel way Hindside
Paper route Final chute


SENTENCES

Indefatigable alert when sit still hurt
Whenever he significantly alters he falters.
Wondrous weather murmured mother.
Unforgettable twist in a such synthesis.
Impeccably particular you always were.
Laboriously enfeebled he still loved people.


WORDS

Driving to the expected
Place in mind in
Place of mind in
Driving to the expected


HERE

You have to reach
Out more it's
Farther away from
You it's here

DATA

Exoneration's face
Echoed distaste
Privileged repetition
Makeshift decision -

*

Now and then
Behind time's
Emptied scene and
Memory's mistake -

*

You are here
And there too
Being bu one
Of you -


SCATTER

All that's left of coherence.


ECHO AGAIN

Statement keep talking
Train round bend over river into distance


DOOR

Everything's before you
were here.


SUMMER '38

Nubble's Light a sort
of bump I thought -
a round insistent
small place

not like this -
it was a bluff,
tip on the edge
of the sea.


AIR

Lift up so you're
Floating out
Of your skin at
The edge but
Mostly seeming
Free of the ground.


ECHOES

Think of the
Dance you could do
One legged man
Two legged woman.


THREE

Hard to be unaddressed -
Empty to reflection -
Take the road east -
Be where it is.


ECHOES

Sunrise always first -
Tat light - is it
Round the earth - what
Simple mindedness.


STAR

Where
It is
There
You are

*

Out there
In here
Now it is
Was also

*

Up where
It will be
And down
Again

*

No one
Point
To it
Ever

* * *

ECHO


Brutish recall
seems useless now
to us all.

But my teeth you said
were yellow
have stayed nonetheless.

It was your handsomeness
went sour, your
girlish insouciance,

one said.
Was being afraid
neurotic?

Did you talk of it.
Was the high cliff jumpable.
Enough enough?

Fifty years
have passed.
I look back,

while you stand here,
see you there, still
see you there.

* * *

FRAGMENT


Slight you lift.
Edge skin down.
Circle seen.
Places now found.

Featured face.
Hand in when.
Disposition.
Distrust.

* * *

HEAVEN


Wherever they've
gone they're
not here
anymore

and all
they stood
for is empty
also.

* * *

ECHO


In which the moment
just left reappears or
seems as if present
again its fact intact -

In which a willing
suspension of disbelief
alters not only the judgement
but all else equally -

In which the time passes
vertically goes up and
up to a higher place a
plane of singular clarity -

In which these painfully small
endings shred of emptying
presence sheddings of seeming
person can at last be admitted.

* * *

ECHO


It was never
simple to wait,
to sit quiet.

Was there still
another way round,
a distance to go -

as if an echo
hung in
the air before

one wass heard,
before a word
had been said.

What was love
and where
and how did one get there.

* * *

ECHO


The return of things
round the great
looping bend in the road

where you remember
stood in mind
greyed encumbrances

patient dead dog
long lost love
till chair's rocking

became roar
sitting static
end of vision

day seems held up
by white hands were
looking for what was

gone couldn't come
back what was with
it wouldn't come looking.

* * *

ECHO, for Eck


Find your way out
no doubt
or in
again begin

Spaces wait
faced
in the dark
no waste

Were there
was here
was
always near

Sit down to see
be quiet be
friend
the end

[Willow Redd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creeley was another poet I was fortunate to meet while I was attending UNCW back in 2005. He was the guest writer that year for the Writing Department's Writer's Week. I got the chance to see him speak and picked up this and another book from him. This one he signed.

Here we have a collection of his poetry, much of which focuses on word play, which I love. My favorite piece from this book is the Coda found at the end, called "Roman Sketchbook."

A good collection.

[Gin Kanges · Rating 4 out of 5]

a great writer-great poems. The book opens with a quotation of a S.T. Coleridge piece. The poet writes of colors and more. R. Creeley is held back by what our language can only do or limits him to do.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finished this today, but I neither understood nor enjoyed it. I didn’t even like Creeley’s line breaks. This was a shame, since I have enjoyed some of his other books.