Well, as I may or may not have said at some point here, it
was hearing Robert Creeley read in El Paso, Texas, back
in the mid- to late-sixties that introduced me to poetry as
a life worth living in. I met him once or twice after that, and
heard him read again only once, just several years ago in
Baltimore.
My favorite Creeley story is this one, and I'm not sure
whether I heard it from him or another.
This one's about the young Creeley, new to the writing of
poetry himself, on a pilgrimage to Rutherford to see if he
could find and meet William Carlos Williams. The tale, as
I heard it, is that Creeley was so nervous, so reticent about
meeting the good doctor that he walked past his house
several times, looking anxiously at the door and windows
of the house, walking around the block, coming back, and
pacing some more. But then Williams, who'd been watching
from inside went to the door and hollered out to Creeley,
"Hey, there, young man! Come on in here. You must be
looking for me."
Hal "Always treat language like a dangerous toy."
--Anselm Hollo
Halvard Johnson
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website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/
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