Robert Creeley, as one of the most representative American modern poets and an author of more than sixty books, was born in Arligton, Massachusetts, in May 21, 1926. He lost his father, a doctor, at the age of four as well as his left eye. He was raised by his mother and had one sister, Helen. He attended Holderness School although the life of full action that he dreamed of began in 1943 when entering Harvard University. A year later he joined the American Field Service in India and Burma, after dropping Harvard. Robert Creeley never took his degree despite the fact that he returned in Harvard in 1945. In the same way, he joined Black Mountain College after the invitation of his close friend and poet Charles Olson and eventually received his degree. His friendship with Charles was of great importance for his life because he helped him find his own style of writing. As Creeley claimed: “Olson taught me how to write. Not how to write poems that he wrote, but how to write poems that I write.” He was also connected to Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Williams, with whom he shared their company.
 

Creeley’s passionate character is revealed by his work, which is joyful and agonized maintaining its connections to his New England background together with its economy of speech and its Puritanistic heritage. His thoughts about feelings characterize him as a self-conscious poet, whose verse reflects the conflict between the self-conscious mind and the instincts of the body. Furthermore, in his poems there appears an even correlation between thinking and feeling as well as an emphasis on the uncertain pursuit of an instant’s possibility. Creeley’s self-awareness, his openness to discovery as well as his wandering towards domesticity, love, the work of memory and most of all, towards the sense of the present are the typical qualities that emerge from his writing. For him, the poet’s role is very important because it creates the possibility for contact. 
 

As for women, they are developed through a variety of roles presented as a wife, mother, daughter, queen or muse, expressing thus Creeley’s need for communication with the other sex, a need that is also reflected in his poetry collection called “For Love”, which is about marriage. “For Love” gave him his first widespread recognition but it didn’t obstruct him from the continuation of teaching at several universities across the country. What proves these poetic skills are the various awards he received including the Levinson prize, two Guggenhein fellowships, the Shelley Memorial Award and the Robert Frost Medal both from the Poetry Society of America and the America Awards for Echoes.
 

Robert Creeley, although shy and moderate, was a mentor to many younger poets as well as a paradigm of teacher to others outside the poetic field with whom he kept in touch. He died in March 30, 2005 due to pneumonia leading not only US but also the entire globe, to an outpouring of grief and appreciation for one of its most important American poets.    

 

 

Κατερίνα Αγγελάκη-Ρουκ.  Σύγχρονοι Αμερικανοί ποιητές. μετάφραση. Κατερίνα Αγγελάκη- Ρουκ. Αθήνα.(1983).

 

THE RAIN (1945)

 

All night the sound had

come back again,

and again falls

this quite, persistent rain.

 

What am I to myself

that must be remembered,

insisted upon

so often? Is it

 

that never the ease,

even the hardness,

of rain falling

will have for me

 

something other than this,

something not so insistent--

am I to be locked in this

final uneasiness.

 

Love, if you love me,

lie next to me.

Be for me, like rain,

the getting out

 

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-

lust of intentional indifference.

Be wet

with a decent happiness.

 

Η ΒΡΟΧΗ

 

Όλη νύχτα ο ήχος είχε

έρθει πίσω ξανά,

και ξανά πέφτει

αυτή η ήσυχη, αδιάκοπη βροχή.

 

Τι είμαι για μένα

που πρέπει να θυμάται κανείς

να επιμένει σ’αυτό

τόσο συχνά; Είναι

 

που ποτέ η άνεση

ακόμη η τραχύτητα

της βροχής πέφτοντας

δεν θα’χουν για μένα

 

κάτι άλλο απ’αυτό,

κάτι όχι τόσο επίμονο`

είμαι για πάντα λοιπόν κλειδωμένος σ’αυτή

την οριστική αμηχανία.  

 

Αγάπη, αν μ’αγαπάς,

ξάπλωσε δίπλα μου.

Γίνε για μένα, σαν τη βροχή

 η έξοδος

 

από την κούραση, την ανοησία, την μισο-

λαγνεία της σκόπιμης αδιαφορίας.

Να’σαι υγρή 

 

με μια αξιοπρεπή ευτυχία.

 

 

 

 

As I sd to my

friend, because I am

always talking,− John, I

 

sd, which was not his

name, the darkness sur-

rounds us, what

 

can we do against

it, or else, shall we &

why not, buy a goddamn big car,

 

drive, he sd, for

christ’s sake, look

out where yr going.

 

 

 

Όπως έλεγα στο

φίλο μου − όλο μιλάω

βλέπεις − Τζον του

 

λέω, που δεν ήταν το

όνομα του, το σκοτάδι μας περι-

τριγυρίζει, τι

 

να κάνουμε ν’

αντισταθούμε, να − και

γιατί όχι − πάρουμε ένα μεγάλο καλοαυτοκίνητο

 

οδηγία, είπε, για

το θεό, κοίταζε

μπροστά σου. 

 

Translated by Katerina Agelaki-Rouk
Κατερίνα Αγγελάκη-Ρουκ.  Σύγχρονοι Αμερικανοί ποιητές. μετάφραση. Κατερίνα Αγγελάκη- Ρουκ. Αθήνα.(1983).

 

 

 

As I was walking

I came upon 

                                                          chance walking

the same road upon.

 

As I sat down 

by chance to move

                                                              later

if and as I might,

 

light the wood was,

      light and green,

                                                         and what I saw

                before I had not seen.

 

It was a lady

            accompanied

by goat men

           leading her.

 

Her hair held earth.

        Her eyes were dark.

A double flute

   made her move.

 

“O love,

                  where are you

leading

             me now?”

 

 

Καθώς περπατούσα,

συνάντησα

την τύχη που βάδιζε

πάνω στον ίδιο δρόμο.

 

Καθώς κάθισα 

τυχαία για να κινηθώ

αργότερα

αν και εφόσον μπορούσα,

 

φως  το δάσος

φως  πράσινο

και ό,τι είδα

δεν το είχα δει πριν.

 

Ήταν μια κόρη,

συνοδευόμενη

από σάτυρους

που την οδηγούσαν.

 

Τα μαλλιά της κρατούσαν τη γη.

Τα μάτια της ήταν σκοτεινά.

Ο δίαυλος

την έκανε να κινείται.

 

“Ω, έρωτα,

πού με οδηγείς

τώρα;”

 

 

 

Looking to the sea, it is a line

of unbroken mountains.

 

It is the sky.

It is the ground. There

we live it, on it.

 

It is a mist

now tangent to another

quiet. Here the leaves

come, there

is the rock in evidence

 

or evidence.

What I come to do

is partial, partially kept.

 

 

 

Βλέποντας την τη θάλασσα, είναι μια γραμμή 

από απάτητα βουνά.

 

Είναι ο ουρανός.

Είναι η γη. Εκεί ζούμε, σε αυτήν.

 

Είναι μια ομίχλη

εφαπτόμενη τώρα σε μια άλλη 

ήσυχη. Εδώ τα φύλλα έρχονται, εκεί 

είναι εμφανής ο βράχος

 

ή η απόδειξη.

Αυτό που καλούμαι να κάνω,

είναι ελλειπές, εν μέρει φυλαγμένο.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY