Robert Creeley Dies
Robert Creeley died Wednesday in Odessa, Texas, where nearby he had been in residence at a writers' retreat maintained by the Lannan Foundation. He was 78.
While living in Buffalo, New York. I read an article in the Buffalo News about Creeley's interest in poetry and the internet. I sent him an emai, telling him I had just started 2River and asking him to submit a few poems. I got an email back in which Creeley talked about his collaborations with artists. He asked if I'd be interested in making those collaborations available on the internet.
I later met Creeley at the SUNY-Buffalo Starbucks. He had just finished a series of poems with Francesco Clemente, the first collaboration that 2River made available. Throughout our work on this project I repeatedly referred to Roberto Clemente, and Creeley always kindly and gently reminded me that Roberto was the baseball player and Francesco was the painter.
When we were working on the Robert Indiana project, Creeley gave me six signed prints by Indiana to scan. We had met in his university office, I left with invaluable art. I later returned it.
Great poets are not necessarily aloof or hoity-toity. Creeley was a real person. Often before we got to talking about poems and paintings, we'd first talk about racquetball or baseball.
You can view these collaborations here at 2River:
Leave a comment