Robert Creeley 1926-2005 BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

Poet Robert Creeley, who died last week at 78, was not the kind of writer whose reputation rested solely on those who read his words on the page. but rather it fanned out in wave upon wave of students he taught (for 40-plus years at the State University of New York in Buffalo and for the past two years here at Brown, as professor of literary arts); of literary colleagues, such as Robert Coover, C.D. Wright, and Forrest Gander at Brown; of other artists, musical and visual (Steve Lacy, Steve Swallow; Rhode Island-based photographer Denny Moers); of family and friends and acquaintances.

In a ’98 interview in these pages, Creeley told me he’d always felt a sense of making "a substantial life." Certainly his prodigious output of poetry, his numerous collaborations — most recently he recorded a hip-hop track for his son Will’s CD, Lackawanna Lives — and his years of teaching attest to that. To his friends, he was loyal and giving, his conversation always stimulating and challenging. "You could twirl each idea he conveyed as if holding a gem — his words transported the listener to wondrous places," recalled Moers. "He could always connect," Wright added, referring to his openness to new thoughts, visions, people, experiences. To Moers, Creeley was a supportive mentor and friend: "Bob had a generosity of spirit that stuck to your bones."

That’s consistent with his upbringing on a West Acton, Massachusetts farm and with his commitment to "the commonplace . . . where understanding is possible" in his poetry. "One wanted a way of being able to use the words particulate to one’s life in a way that would give them agency and dignity and respect," Creeley stressed when we talked. "I have always felt that the isolation of poetry or the confining of poetry to a sense of high art was unwise in every way. In some sense, if I could write poems as clear as Hank Williams’s lyrics, I would be very pleased."

Concerning his teaching, Wright noted: "It didn’t matter what the course was called or what the job required, he knew so much poetry by heart, and he knew the kind of animal he was dealing with on so many sides, that everything he passed on was useful."

Creeley’s political views made him worry about the world his young students were facing, but he’d made his own peace with it: "One’s prospects over 70 are that sooner or later one’s got to figure on dying. The so-called battle with the world is for my mind utterly gone. I certainly have questions about policies or proposals for war. But I have no quarrels with the world of humanness, per se, at all. I feel very at home in it."