Robert Creeley, modern poet (77)

Of course, it is an exaggeration to make Creeley responsible for either the virtues or the faults of modern poetry, but he did teach, in the early ’50s, at Black Mountain College, a highly influential, experimental centre for artists in the hills of North Carolina, and he did edit the Black Mountain Review, which published a lot of avant-garde American poets, such as Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov and Charles Olson. He and Olson also did formulate theories of poetry that were pretty radical, including the notion that poets should shape their poems according to the rhythms of their breathing and speech. And he has written verse that is among the most demanding of our age. But in the latest of his many collections of poetry, If I Were Writing This, Creeley also demonstrates that, among other things, he has a clear voice that communicates unmistakeable feeling. / Toronto Star 24.12.03