Robert Creeley and Thomas Swan

Two things before I sleep tonight.

First is my meeting and coffee with Robert Creeley several years ago. In that meeting he said to me, after we discussed some of my poems he had reviewed, that I needn't bother getting a degree in English or an MFA. He said that to write well, I simply needed to "Read, write, and listen." Those words were a comfort to me then, and changed the direction of my poetry, back to the more organic form I was writing in before I sat in the "workshop." Talking with him, he was so laid back and generous with his stories. I just felt an affinity for him. For his person. He was the real thing. Afterword, I corresponded with him for awhile, until really, he left Buffalo for Brown University last year. Anyway, he's been an influence on me. I thought of him today, for some reason, which I don't understand.

Here's an excerpt from an interview, in which he discusses the "obscurity of poetry" (something I've also discussed recently in correspondence with a fellow poetry appreciater). My grandmother can recite poems learned in her childhood as well...

JA: I was wondering if you could speak a little about the relative obscurity of poetry. I mean, throughout the ages various poets have made it a goal to connect more with the mainstream; all said and done, at least in modern times, this has not really happened. What is it about poetry that renders it, in terms of popularity, so obscure?

RC: I know it's been said a lot, but once more can't hurt; that is, there are many modes and manners of poetry, and the obscurity you speak of has to do with that most familiar to those using an academic frame or definition of what "poetry" is supposed to be. Think of obvious parallels with music, i.e., there are composers whose work frustrates the interest of the public and those who very much attract it. It's all "music," and it all has its particular uses and occasions. For example, I'd think of Bob Dylan as having written a substantial amount of poetry. Likewise there's dear Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who seems happily to be understood, and I see Garrison Keillor says "Thank you!" on the back cover of his book just now published. Poetry has not been obscure for all that long, really. In many cultures it's been both the record and the manifest of the culture's habits and history. When poetry got relegated to the classroom, sometime at the turn of the last century, as you note, then a lot of public interest dropped away. My grandmother, in contrast, could recite poems by the hour sans any instruction in their circumstance whatsoever.

And then there is Thomas Swan. My former music director. I had one dream of him after he died. Just once. He was healthy again, and standing in the choir rehearsal space at church, while I stood in his adjacent office. I was upset over something, and I refused to cross through the threshold of the door to where he was. He was vibrant, as though faintly illuminated from within. I finally crossed over to him, from the office, the work world, to the creative space. I started telling him about whatever it was that was bothering me, and he stopped me, and calmly said "Don't be afraid Brenda, everything's going to be alright." I woke up then, and wrote the dream down in my journal at 4AM. I thought of him today, and that dream. I've never dreamed of him since, but when I am upset over something, I usually think of that dream. Two months after the dream, I quit my job to write my novel, even though I was scared to death. Nothing has been the same since then, in the best way possible. I took the leap. He was right, I didn't need to be afraid.