Skip to main content
University of California Press

Selected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–2005

by Robert Creeley (Author), Benjamin Friedlander (Editor), Penelope Creeley (Other)
Paperback
Price: $34.95
Publication Date: Jan 2008
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: Omit British Common; Include Canada
Pages: 360
ISBN: 9780520251960
Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.25
Illustrations: 9 illustrations
Request an Exam or Desk Copy(opens in new window)RightsLink(opens in new window)Read an Excerpt(opens in new window)
Recommend to your Library (PDF)(opens in new window)Rights and Permissions

About the Book

This new, compact Selected Poems offers for the first time a balanced survey of Robert Creeley's entire sixty years of poetic accomplishment. It showcases the works that made him one of the most beloved and significant writers of the past century while inviting a new recognition of his enduring commitments, fluency, and power.

About the Author

Robert Creeley (1926–2005) published more than sixty books of poetry, prose, essays, and interviews in the United States and abroad. His many honors included the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Bollingen Prize in Poetry. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Distinguished Professor in the Graduate Program in Literary Arts at Brown University.
Benjamin Friedlander is Associate Professor of English at the University of Maine, is author of Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism among other books. He coedited The Collected Prose of Charles Olson (UC Press) with Donald Allen.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Author's Note

From The Charm
From For Love
From Words
From Pieces
From A Day Book
From Thirty Things
From Backwards
From Away
From Hello
From Later
From Mirrors
From Memory Gardens
From Windows
From Echoes
From Life & Death
From If I Were Writing This
From On Earth

Notes
Indes of Titles and First Lines

Reviews

“All these poems pop with humor and energy, and Creeley's fearlessness as he aged in exploring different, even ancient, forms testifies to his relentless energy. When stripped utterly of pretense, Creeley found his greatest realizations, using a life filled with conflict and despair as more than just inspiration — these were experiences that could only be understood through art. The results are new forms for new ideas, a suitable enough definition for a worthy avant-garde.”
— New York Sun
“Editor Friedlander has done a masterful job assembling the best of 50 years of poetry. . . . This well-chosen selected collection is full of subtle, almost hesitant oppositional poems, rather than confessional narratives, adding up to a distinguished posthumous release that will keep Creeley’s necessary poetry very much alive.”
— Booklist
“For readers coming to Creeley’s work for the first time, the format of a “Selected Poems” is the best way in, and this new “Selected,” supplanting a 1991 edition, is well chosen by Benjamin Friedlander. . . . Robert Creeley was one of those artists who refused to let himself be bored by his own art. The reader will find very little to be bored by in this brilliant, essential volume.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Readers new to Creeley, or simply those who want a more portable edition, will . . . welcome this new sampling.”
— The Nation
"Here is Creeley at his skillfully selected best: full of the melodies of plain speech, concise yet resonant with emotion."—Juliana Spahr, author of This Connection of Everyone with Lungs

"So fantastically simple and so satisfyingly complicated, these poems band together like the days in 'One Day': 'One day after another-/ perfect./ They all fit.'"—John Ashbery

"Beautifully edited by Ben Friedlander with tenderness, intelligence, and care. A superb selection, well-introduced. Selected Poems provides a great sense of the range of Creeley's accomplishment—these poems among the most important of our time—a way of writing with the hesitations and grace of a new-found line, thinking informed by sources from Emily Dickinson to Charlie Parker. Selected Poems is at once a tribute to Creeley, a perfect introduction for new readers, and a valuable distillation for those who have already acquired a taste for Creeley's poetry. The perfect assembly to and for one so fond of saying 'onward.' We can now go onward with these selected poems, onward with these well-chosen words, with thanks to Robert Creeley and to Ben Friedlander."—Hank Lazer, author of The New Spirit

"Benjamin Friedlander, himself a fine poet-critic and a great connoisseur of Creeley's poetry, has put together a superb selection."—Marjorie Perloff

"An excellent selection and introduction. It is an edition that acknowledges work that has defined the poet's career while offering a new narrative for the entire oeuvre. It will join UC Press's distinguished and definitive editionsof postwar poetry and will provide us all with a summary guide to Creeley's best work."—Michael Davidson

"In a quiet moment I hear Bob pause where I never would have expected it. Such resolve. Such heart. And an ear to reckon with. No truly further American poem without his."—Clark Coolidge, author of Counting on Planet Zero