National Poetry Month: Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley had a long and prolific career as an American poet. He began his career being associated with the Black Mountain poets, studying with Charles Olson but not limiting himself to projected verse. Later, he became friends with Allen Ginsberg and moved in the circles of beat poets.

Among Creeley's best-known poems is "I Know A Man." This poem's excellence derives from its ability to constantly defer meaning. Mimetic of the lack of meaning in the world, many of the words are clipped, such as "sd" for "said" or "yr" for "your." The two syllables of "surrounds" are split on different lines. The speaker calls his friend John, but then immediately confesses that this is not his friend's name. He starts waxing philosophical, but then in the last stanza the friend tells the speaker to drive, or to become grounded in reality rather than abstraction.