Robert Creeley, 1926- . American author
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Finding-Aid for the Creeley Papers [00031]Collection Description
Papers, 1951-1984.
ca. 3000 items
Access: Open. Portions of the collection are uncatalogued.
The Robert Creeley Papers form one of the more interesting of
Washington University's manuscript collections. Creeley has been
a seminal figure in American poetry since the 1950's and his
papers here at Washington University highlight aspects of his own
literary development that parallel and reflect developments in
American poetry. The bulk of the collection of papers that were
once housed here at Washington University now reside at Stanford
University.
Emerging as a young poet in the late 1940's, Creeley corresponded
with those members of the previous literary generation whom he
regarded as mentors: Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Louis
Zukofsky, Basil Bunting, Edward Dahlberg, to name just a few.
Their letters to him, a few of which are housed in his Papers,
offer a fascinating look at the passing on of the Modernist
tradition to a willing young apprentice. Together with Charles
Olson, Creeley transformed Modernist poetics into a new one which
is most commonly referred to as the Black Mountain School after
the North Carolina college of which Olson was rector and Creeley
a faculty member in the mid-1950's. In their correspondence,
Creeley and Olson experimented with what Olson called "projective
verse." Together with the letters of Creeley in Olson's Papers at
the University of Connecticut and at Stanford University, they
constitute one of the documentary cornerstones of contemporary
American poetics.
Creeley corresponded heavily with other key figures in the
Black Mountain movement, notably Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov,
Ed Dorn, and Fielding Dawson. Their letters to Creeley,
especially in the 1950's and 1960's, offer a fascinating look at
this emerging group of poets as it defined a new poetics.
As the list below illustrates, the collection contains
correspondence from Black Mountain authors but include many
important literary figures of the last forty years. A sizable
number of letters between Creeley and his family are also in the
collection and among his earliest correspondence is a fascinating
group of letters from Creeley to his mother written from Burma
where he was stationed during World War II.
Also present in great numbers are manuscripts from other authors. Finally, the Creeley Papers include runs and single issues of many important little magazines and examples of most of the significant American and English small presses from the 1940's up to the present.
Bibliography
Novik, Mary. Robert Creeley: An Inventory, 1945-1970. (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1973). Murray, T. and Boardway, S. "Year by Year Bibliography of Robert Creeley" in Robert Creeley: The Poet's Workshop . ed. carroll F. Terrell. (Orono, ME: The National Poetry Foundation, 1984). Murray, T. "The Robert Creeley Collection at Washington University," in Sagetrieb vol. I, no. 3 (Winter, 1982), pp. 191-194.
Selected Names
Creeley, Robert, 1926- . American author
Brakhage, Stan, 1933-2003. American author
Dawson, Fielding, 1930- . American author
Dorn, Edward, 1929-1999. American author
Duncan, Robert, 1919-1988. American author
Levertov, Denise, 1923-1997. American author
Logan, John, 1923- . American author
Malanga, Gerard, 1943- . American author
Rago, Henry, 1915-1969. American author
Zukofsky, Louis, 1904-1978. American author