I Know a Man by Robert Creeley - Using other people's words

I Know a Man

We moved on to the anxious, troubling, edgy recordings of I Know a Man. There are several on this page: writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Creeley Page down a little to find them.

After we had several rounds of saying what we wanted in 2 minute timed session, I hit on the idea that the speaker might have been walking in the daytime, not driving at night.

He could have been about to step off the kerb into the path of a truck, bump into a baby's pram, slip over the edge of a dangerous cliff edge.

I am still completely wedded to the images of 2 people in the front seats of a car driving through the night, but now I am wedded to another scenario too.

Using other people's words

We tried cutting up the poem into individual words and took some time to make our own something new from them. I broke the rules and only used 16 words. All the rest were my own. I decided on a series of lines, each one starting with I or You alternately. The rest of each line included, you/your or I/my. This constraint surprised me. Now I need to do further drafts.

Doing our own work is less familiar to us than discussing someone else's poem. In which directions will our group go? Should we take turns to lead a writing time for the last 30 mins of our sessions? We are not used to writing instantly and have not given feedback to each other on what results from it.

Penelope Creeley

I ran into this essay on Robert Creeley by his wife Penelope Creeley. It is a love song in prose.

http://sibila.com.br/english/robert-and-books-on-creeleys-library/10200

Over the weekend I nearly took out a book of his letters from the London Library, but decided there were too many words in it for me. I got some simple art books instead.

Then a man told the returns desk that he was bringing his mother's books back as she had just died. It was one of those moments when it is ok to look across and acknowledge that I had overheard what he had just said.

I did a card for him at St James' Piccadilly and lit a candle too. No such thing as overkill in those circumstances.

Then I wanted to rest in peace while an orchestra rehearsed. That was when I realised I actually did want to read those letters of Robert Creeley, but I had firmly put him back on the shelf half an hour earlier.

I Know A Man - Robert Creeley

Plus the audio of him reading it - fabulous and disturbing.