The selected letters of Robert Creeley

508 Pages·2014·21.75 MB·English

by  Creeley

The Selected Letters
of Robert Creeley
Edited by
Rod Smith
Peter Baker
Kaplan Harris
UnIVERSITy OF CALIFORnIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
SIMPSON
IMPRINT IN HUMANITIES
The humanities endowment
by Sharon Hanley Simpson and
Barclay Simpson honors
MURIEL CARTER HANLEY
whose intellect and sensitivity
have enriched the many lives
that she has touched.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of
the Simpson Humanities Endowment Fund of the University
of California Press Foundation, which was established by
a major gift from Barclay and Sharon Simpson.
The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the support
of the Leslie Scalapino Memorial Fund for Poetry,
which was established by generous contributions to
the UC Press Foundation by Thomas J. White and
the Leslie Scalapino– O Books Fund.
The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the generous
support of the Humanities Endowment Fund of
the University of California Press Foundation.
The Selected Letters
of Robert Creeley
Group, 1963: “Jerry Heiserman (later Sufi ‘Hassan’), the car whose? Dan McCloud
(later editor of Georgia Straight underground paper), Allen Ginsberg, Bobbie Louise
Hawkins Creeley, Professor Warren Tallman our host, Robert Creeley above big Charles
Olson. Seated below left, Thomas Jackrell (student poet who wrote about Campbell
soup cans), Philip Whalen poet, and postmodern poetics editor Don Allen— in front of
Tallman’s house— he’d sent me ticket to return round world after year-and-half in India
for Vancouver B.C. Canada university poetry conference, last days of July 1963” (Allen
Ginsberg). Photo by Allen Ginsberg. © Allen Ginsberg Estate.
The Selected Letters
of Robert Creeley
Edited by
Rod Smith
Peter Baker
Kaplan Harris
UnIVERSITy OF CALIFORnIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university
presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by
advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural
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For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2014 by The Regents of the University of California
For acknowledgments of permissions, please see page 459.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Creeley, Robert, 1926– 2005.
[Correspondence. Selections]
The selected letters of Robert Creeley / edited by Rod Smith, Peter
Baker, and Kaplan Harris.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978–0 -520–2 4160–2 (hardback)
1. Creeley, Robert, 1926–2005— Correspondence. 2. Poets,
American— 20th century—Correspondence. I. Smith,
Rod, 1962—editor of compilation. II. Baker, Peter, 1955—
editor of compilation. III. Harris, Kaplan, 1975—editor of
compilation. IV. Title.
ps3505.r43z48 2014
811'.54— dc23 2013026610
Manufactured in the United States of America
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
ansi/niso z39.48– 1992 (r 2002) (Permanence of Paper).
What you do is how you get along.
What you did is all it ever means.
—Robert Creeley, “Place to Be”
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xix
Acknowledgments xxi
Chronology xxiii
Editors’ Introduction xxvii
Part one. The Charm, 1945– 1952:
Burma, New Hampshire, Aix-en-Provence
Letter to Genevieve and Helen Creeley 1/20/45 3
Letter to Genevieve and Helen Creeley 4/13/45 4
Letter to Genevieve and Helen Creeley 5/10/45 6
Letter to Genevieve Creeley 5/15/45 8
Letter to Bob Leed 6/21/48 8
Letter to Bob Leed [ca. August 1948] 13
Letter to William Carlos Williams 2/11/50 18
Letter to William Carlos Williams 2/27/50 19
Letter to Larry Eigner [ca. February 1950] 22
Letter to Ezra Pound 4/14/50 25
Letter to William Carlos Williams 4/15/50 27
Letter to Cid Corman [4/23/50] 28
Letter to William Carlos Williams 4/24/50 32