Charles Olson and Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence

by Robert Creeley, George F. Butterick, Richard Blevins

Whenever I become intrigued by a writer, I tend to read everything I can get my hands on that he or she has written -- including their letters. Correspondence presents the unique opportunity to become closer to your writer. The guard is down, the language is conversational, the ideas fly by fresh and uncrafted by months of revisions. This collection of letters between two of the famous Black Mountain poets bares their souls in everything from writer's block to religions to saving each other's lives through the near-forgotten art of written correspondence.

Genres: Poetry, Biography, Literature

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P. Capen Professor of Poetry and the Humanities at State University of New York at Buffalo, and lived in Waldoboro, Maine, Buffalo, New York and Providence, Rhode Island, where he taught at Brown University. He was a recipient of the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and was much beloved as a generous presence in many poets' lives.

Reviews

[Anastasios Kozaitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The foundations of pomo poetry were dropped in these ten volumes. Collectibles. I found myself a complete set in NC, and the set is invaluable to me.

[Gary Norris · Rating 5 out of 5]

you really need all 10 volumes.

my favorites are Vols 1-3

[Bruce Carr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating.