The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2009

Robert Creeley Redux

The first time, a poetry recidivist, I heard Creeley read, I was appalled at his careless, offhanded manner, as if he had just gotten up from a nap or been smoking marijuana or drinking. Sometimes, I knew, he wore an eye patch, whether or not that day I don’t remember. The second time I saw him, with or without his eye patch, detail lost in the dumps (my smoking, alcoholic landlady loved taking garbage and discards to the dumps) of memory—bad times had swallowed my critical excess: I’d experienced the ease of downfall. Ginger, who persuaded me of my worth as a poet, who dropped me for reasons connected to poetry, believed Creeley was interested in me (was coming on to me, I think is the expression). He wanted a cigarette. Urgently. I don’t remember how we got him a cigarette or maybe I got it. And we may (I’m not sure), after the cigarette, have sat next to each other that day at that conference somewhere near my house, maybe at the community college, a Saturday morning, an all-day or weekend conference, and chatted comfortably, poet to poet. Recently I remembered Creeley was on the panel the year I got a prize, unexpectedly, many years ago. That was a dark time and so is this. Not so long ago, in 10 minutes I’d have written a whole page. Not every published poem needs to be good, or even most poems, even Robert Creeley’s. He was a poet I admired and he wanted a cigarette and I’d been going through a divorce and felt unattractive and if not untalented not published enough or asked to teach enough. I wanted both and should have wanted neither.

Phyllis Koestenbaum