There is that in love
 which, by the syntax of,
 men find women and join
 their bodies to their minds

 --which wants so to acquire
 a continuity, a place,
 a demonstration that it must
 be one's own sentence.

“We’ll definitely be running more of Creeley’s work in the future….” –thomas, 20 Sep 2000

I figured, after three years, I’d step up!

Poem #552 needed some company. I was introduced to Creeley this past summer in a poetry workshop, my last undergraduate class at university. Studying him and his contemporaries (like Williams) definitely opened my eyes to different styles, not the least of which was the attractiveness of sparse rhyme; more accurately, perhaps, he uses rhyme where it is most effective.

And it’s this that sets Creeley apart, I believe, his “efficiency of design” as I explained in a critique. Not a word is out of place; no line break is unintentional; no punctuation left unconsidered. He communicates multiple thoughts with minimal words through his line break, thus the efficiency. Also interesting, is how the form of his poems often “fit” the poem, if only subtly (“Water” is a good example). (His line break is quite deliberate – to hear him read a selection will go a long way in elucidating this. Some performances are downloadable via
http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/linebreak/programs/creeley/.)

As was described of Creeley in the bio of “Morning” [Poem #552], his style of poetry relied on conversational American English. He writes, “I love it that these words, ‘made solely of air,’ as Williams said, have no owner finally to determine them….for these words which depend upon us for their very existence fail as our usage derides or excludes them. They are no more right or wrong than we are, yet suffer our presumption forever” (in his preface to Selected Poems, 1991).

There were many poems I could have easily chosen for this selection, but did this one if for no other reason than it is definitely one of my favourite Creeley pieces. Not all of Creeley comes through in this, but one can see how not only does language convey the poem, it is also a part of the poem, as Creeley joins together love with a sentence. Short, to the point, creative – Creeley. I’ll leave dissection to the reader.

DJ