Robert Creeley: A Biography

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

Ekbert Faas, who wrote a brilliant biography of Creeley’s fellow poet
Robert Duncan, began this work as an authorized biographer. He ended on
bad terms with Creeley and on good terms with the subject’s ex-wife,
whose memoirs and diary are reprinted at the end, a rather unusual
approach that proves (as the courts say) highly prejudicial to the poet.
Faas believes that the early Creeley was difficult and sometimes cruel,
but more interesting than the platitudinous and sentimental version of
the poet in his old age. Creeley’s enormous influence worldwide (and
especially in Canada) as a lyric poet and experimental prose stylist has
little to do with the events of his love life, which Faas presents as a
kind of soap opera. Creeley’s numerous bitter quarrels with friends
are documented as well. The vexing thing about this overlong and
antagonistic book is that later scholars and critics will have to make
use of it in spite of its biases, for it contains an extraordinary
amount of information. Faas has done his homework, providing vast
documentation of his interviews and archival research. Unfortunately it
reads at times more like homework—dogged and grudging homework—than
like a fair-minded treatment of the poet.