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Damn Fine Letters
work but he really does admire his way with words.
The subject matter may alarm him at points but the
style, the methodology of Burroughs, impresses him
and he tells his friends just that in letters. Burroughs
and Creeley, an odd couple. And, of course, with
Kerouac in San Francisco, they are embroiled
together, Kerouac needlessly so, over Kenneth
Rexroth’s wife. Creeley and Marthe Rexroth have an
affair, it ends not so long after. So it is a point where
Rexroth, long a champion and rallying point for the
newly emergent Beat Generation,
turns on them. Turns on Kerouac,
who he sees as complicit in the
marriage meddling. So there is
much in Creeley’s letters about all
this. Rexroth wouldn’t let go. It
caused big problems.
There are letters to
England. A fascinating insight into
how things got done in 1961 when
Creeley replies to overtures from
English poet Tom Raworth, then
publishing his Outburst magazine.
Raworth is keen to contact US poets
and Creeley goes the extra mile for
him with names and addresses of pretty well all the
major Beat poets, Ginsberg, McClure, Olson, Robert
Duncan, you name them and they are in his letter.
Letters to Andrew Crozier, Alexander Trocchi. These
tip offs would manifest themselves for years to come
in the Transatlantic exchange of poetry. That results
for Creeley with contact with publisher John Calder
later on in England, with the publication of a number
of books there. Though his relationship with Calder
was to prove irksome for him.
Creeley moves home a lot, New Mexico, San
Francisco, Guatemala, Canada and various other
locations. He and wife Bobbie have four daughters,
one dies tragically aged five in an accident. It hits
him hard. Yet he continues editing this magazine
here, that one there. Small press, independent
publications. Gets his poetry in at places like Yugen,
run by Leroi Jones and Hettie Jones in New York, a
focus for pretty well all the Beat writers. A constant
stream of letters back and forth between him and Ed
Dorn, Louis Zukofsky, Jerome Rothenberg, Kerouac,
Ginsberg, Olson – with news of the death of Olson’s
wife Betty, William Carlos Williams, Robert Duncan,
Alex Trocchi and others. All the time Creeley has a
day job, teaching at universities. He’s very conscious
of supporting his family. Guatemala is a curious place
for him, very colonial, beautiful, generally a poor
country where Creeley has no friends, so the letter is
a big solace for him. New Mexico sees Creeley happy
and sad. His mood swings on his sojourns there,
teaching and bringing up a family, are wild ones. And
Ed Dorn his most regular correspondent along with
Olson, whom he seems to idolise. These are letters of
longing to be with friends, free of the shackles of that
day job, existing as a poet in the USA seems
impossible financially for him.
The letters seem to dwindle
somewhat as the 1970s evolve, he’s
preoccupied with teaching, supporting
his family, and a little spark seems to go
out in him at times. His marriage to
Bobbie Louise Hawkins, they bring up
four daughters, falters. There is much
discussion between them, two, three
years slip by and trial separations. The
separation becomes permanent, but
judging from the tone of the letters it is
amicable. There is a hint at Creeley’s
darker side in a letter to Bobbie, it
seems he could be a Jekyll and Hyde
character when drinking.
Letters go out to Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders,
Diane di Prima. Creeley seems to embrace the
changing face of poetry in the 1970s, readings,
performances of poetry. He’s pleased with the money,
but the treadmill of it wears him down. And he’s
forever mobile, moving, moving. In the mid 1970s he
finds himself living above a store in Buffalo, a very
nice apartment by the sounds of his notes. One of his
grownup daughters lives close by. He’s at Buffalo
University teaching, a lively place of course – with a
magnificent library and you think from his tone that
he’s settled. He’s fifty years old, the urge to party like
it was San Francisco 1956, has largely left him – and
yet he’s off again. New Zealand, Singapore, Australia,
Europe, England and more. Never settling.
One curious aspect of the book. Charles
Olson dies in 1970 and save for a few stray lines as
Creeley visits his sick bed, there is nothing. An
almost total absence of correspondence relating to
Olson’s going. What’s happening here? The man who
inspired Creeley so much, surely Creeley spoke of
him in letters to others, Duncan, Dorn? It is a puzzle.
Possibly these letters will surface in another
collection? It is to be hoped for, otherwise there exists
a gaping dark hole. One death that does feature,
though again it is a fleeting moment, is that of Jack
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