Such hard news, Stephen
And my thanks to all who have already responded. He was a mentor to so
many, myself among them (one of those he never even knew yet taught, by
example, by the poems, so present, so totally there.
Like Alison I simply didn't consider that he might soon join the other
great ones who have passed on their way to the sea (to misquote [I am
sure] Denise Levertov)...
A terrible wound in the body of poetry.
Doug
On 30-Mar-05, at 9:43 AM, Stephen Vincent wrote:
> Excuse any cross-posting.
> Dealing with major, inevitable loss - never easy.
> A sadness yet to fully form.
> Godspeed -
>
> Stephen V
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Charles Bernstein <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:46:22 -0500
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Robert Creeley (1926-2005)
>
> It is with great sadness that I report the death of Robert Creeley,
> this
> morning, as the sun rose over Odessa, Texas, where he was on an
> extended
> visit. He was with his wife, Penelope, and his two youngest children,
> Hannah and Willie.
>
> There will be time to say much more. For now those who knew him,
> through
> his work or as part of his life, will live this day in his honor and
> in his
> shadow.
>
> As Bob would say, Onward!; but I, for one, falter.
>
> Charles Bernstein
>
>
> The Way
>
> Somewhere in all the time that's passed
> was a thing in mind became the evidence,
> the pleasure even in fact of being lost
> so quickly, simply that what it was could never last.
>
> Only knowing was measure of what one could
> make hold together for that moment's recognition,
> or else the world washed over like a flood
> of meager useless truths, of hostile incoherence.
>
> Too late to know that knowing was its own reward
> and that wisdom had at best a transient credit.
> Whatever one did or didn't do was what one could.
> Better at last believe than think to question?
>
> There wasn't choice if one had seen the light,
> not of belief but of that soft, blue-glowing fusion
> seemed to appear or disappear with thought,
> a minute magnesium flash, a firefly's illusion.
>
> Best wonder at mind and let that flickering ambience
> of wondering be the determining way you follow,
> which leads itself from day to day into tomorrow,
> finds all it ever finds is there by chance.
>
> from *If I Were Writing This*
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
>
>
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
He saw the dark as a ragged garment
spread out to air.
Through its rents and moth-holes
the silver light came pouring.
Denise Levertov
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