Selected Poems, 1945-2005

This new, compact Selected Poems offers for the first time a balanced survey of Robert Creeley's entire sixty years of poetic accomplishment. It showcases the works that made him one of the most beloved and significant writers of the past century while inviting a new recognition of his enduring commitments, fluency, and power.

"Here is Creeley at his skillfully selected best: full of the melodies of plain speech, concise yet resonant with emotion."—Juliana Spahr, author of This Connection of Everyone with Lungs

"So fantastically simple and so satisfyingly complicated, these poems band together like the days in 'One Day': 'One day after another-/ perfect./ They all fit.'"—John Ashbery

"Beautifully edited by Ben Friedlander with tenderness, intelligence, and care. A superb selection, well-introduced. Selected Poems provides a great sense of the range of Creeley's accomplishment—these poems among the most important of our time—a way of writing with the hesitations and grace of a new-found line, thinking informed by sources from Emily Dickinson to Charlie Parker.Selected Poems is at once a tribute to Creeley, a perfect introduction for new readers, and a valuable distillation for those who have already acquired a taste for Creeley's poetry. The perfect assembly to and for one so fond of saying 'onward.' We can now go onward with these selected poems, onward with these well-chosen words, with thanks to Robert Creeley and to Ben Friedlander."—Hank Lazer, author of The New Spirit

"Benjamin Friedlander, himself a fine poet-critic and a great connoisseur of Creeley's poetry, has put together a superb selection."—Marjorie Perloff

"An excellent selection and introduction. It is an edition that acknowledges work that has defined the poet's career while offering a new narrative for the entire oeuvre. It will join UC Press's distinguished and definitive editionsof postwar poetry and will provide us all with a summary guide to Creeley's best work."—Michael Davidson

"
In a quiet moment I hear Bob pause where I never would have expected it. Such resolve. Such heart. And an ear to reckon with. No truly further American poem without his."—Clark Coolidge, author of Counting on Planet Zero

The New York Times - August Kleinzahler

For readers coming to Creeley's work for the first time, the format of a "Selected Poems" is the best way in, and this new Selected, supplanting a 1991 edition, is well chosen by Benjamin Friedlander. It includes a number of moving later poems not included in the earlier volume, many on the subject of aging, most notably the poem "When I Think" from Creeley's final collection, On Earth…[a] brilliant, essential volume.

Robert Creeley (1926-2005) published more than sixty books of poetry, prose, essays, and interviews in the United States and abroad. His many honors included the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Bollingen Prize in Poetry. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Distinguished Professor in the Graduate Program in Literary Arts at Brown University.
Benjamin Friedlander is Associate Professor of English at the University of Maine, is author of Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism among other books. He coedited The Collected Prose of Charles Olson (UC Press) with Donald Allen.