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On Earth: Last Poems and an Essay

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Robert Creeley died last year, an event he expected and understood as well as any poet ever has. This collection of his last writings is a treasure to those of us who fell under his inspiring and straightforward spell of writing: it is an apt epitaph to a man whose poems caressed the human condition and accepted death as a final stanza to life.

Creeley embraced Buddhism in its vision of the panoply of existence. His works reflect his need to address aging as part of living, the importance of memory in the persistence of those departed: his poems have always included elegies to old friends that embody his perception of the life process. In 'For Ric, who Loved the World' he sighs 'The sounds/ of his particular/ music echoing,/ stay in the soft/ air months after/ all's gone to/ grass, to lengthening/ shadows, to slanting/ sun on shifting water,/ to the late light's edges/ through tall trees -/ despite the mind's/ still useless,/ ponderous thought.'

Included in this poignant volume is the text of an essay exploring the late verse of Walt Whitman. It is a fitting tribute to poets of the past and a warm tie to those for whom Robert Creeley was one of the truly affectionately respected poets of our country. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, May 06