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Guide to the Robert Creeley Computer Files, 1988-2002
M1081
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Title: Creeley, Robert, Computer Files,
Date (inclusive): 1988-2002
Collection number: M1081
Creator:
Creeley, Robert
Extent:
.5 linear ft. (51 floppy disks, 5 Zip Disks, 3 CD-ROMs)
Repository:
Stanford University. Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
Abstract: Working papers and correspondence (principally outgoing but also incoming email) from the late 1980s through 2002.
Language:
English.
All medical records for Robert Creeley and his family have been restricted, as have student recommendations and certain financial
documents.
Electronic access to the Robert Creeley's Computer Files is currently being developed. Researcher's interested in accessing
these materials should direct their requests to Michael Olson, Special Collections Assistant Librarian for Electronic Media
Materials at (650) 723-1704 or mgolson@stanford.edu.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights
reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To
obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the
Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
Robert Creeley, Computer Files. M1081. Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Purchased, 1999.
Recognized as a seminal figure of American letters in the second half of the 20th century, Robert White Creeley was born in
Arlington, Massachusetts, on May 21, 1926, attended the Holderness School and then Harvard College. He received degrees from
The Black Mountain College (B.A., 1956) and the University of New Mexico (M.A., 1960).
After serving as an ambulance driver for the American Field Service in India and Burma, then living for a year outside Aix-en-Provence,
France, Creeley moved in 1952 to Mallorca, where he founded and edited the Divers Press. Upon his return to the United States
and at the invitation of Charles Olson, Creeley moved to North Carolina where he joined the faculty of the Black Mountain
College and edited the short-lived but highly influential journal, The Black Mountain Review (1954 -1957). Though he left
the college in 1955, Creeley had already established himself as one of the leading figures of the literary avant-garde of
the 1950s, establishing with Charles Olson the "Black Mountain School,"one of the most important movements in American letters,
the foundation of Projective Verse, a break from the New Criticism and its "insistence on form as extrensic to the poem. He
is notable for having established a lasting association with his literary mentors-Pound, Williams, Zukofsky, Bunting, and
Dahlberg, among others-as well as those poets, writers and visual artists associated with the experimental arts of Black Mountain
and the 1950s avant-garde. Among these are Paul Blackburn, John Chamberlain, Francisco Clemente, Cid Corman, Fielding Dawson,
Jim Dine, Elsa Dorfman, Ed Dorn, Robert Duncan, Robert Indiana, R.B. Kitaj, Denise Levertov, Marisol, and especially Charles
Olson, with whom Creeley corresponded extensively and collaborated on Mayan Letters (1953). Creeley was also a presence in
the San Francisco poetry renaissance, where he formed a life-long association with Barth, Corso, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and McClure.
Creeley is currently the SUNY Distinguished Professor of English and holds the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and Humanities
at the State University of New York, Buffalo, a center of innovation and postmodern poetics, particularly that or those of
the so-called "L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E" poets.
While his oeuvre includes short stories, essays, a novel, as well as criticism, Creeley is known principally as a poet. His
friend and fellow poet John Ashbery has said of Creeley and his work, "He is the best we have." He has published over thirty
volumes of verse since 1952, including: Words (1967); Pieces (1969); St. Martin's (1971); A Day Book (1972); Thirty Things
(1974); Presences : A Text for Marisol (1976); Away (1976); Echoes (1982); Mirrors (1983); Memory Gardens (1986); and Windows
(1990). His most recent collections of poems are Echoes (1994), published by New Directions, and Loops (1995), published by
Nadja. Among his collections of poems are: For Love : Poems, 1950-1960 (1962); Poems 1950-1965 (1966); The Charm (1971); The
Finger : Poems 1966-1969 (1970); The Door : Selected Poems (1975); Selected Poems (1976); The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley,
1945-1975 (1982); and Selected Poems 1945-1990 (1991).
Creeley has been awarded numerous literary prizes, including the Horst Bienek Lyrikpreis from the Bavarian Academy of Fine
Arts, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Award, and a Rockefeller Grant. He was named New York State Poet Laureate in
1992. Creeley is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
He lives with his wife, Penelope Highton Creeley, and two of his six children in Buffalo, New York.
| 1926 | Robert White Creeley born in Arlington, Massachusetts, May 21 to Oscar Slate and Genevieve Jules Creeley |
| 1928 | Left eye injured in accident |
| 1930 | Father died. Family moves to West Acton |
| 1940 | Entered Holderness School |
| 1943 | Entered Harvard College |
| 1944-1945 | Served in the American Field Service in India and Burma |
| 1945 | Returned to Harvard |
| 1946 | First published poem. Married Ann MacKinnon. |
| 1947 | Left Harvard without a degree |
| 1948 | Son David born |
| 1948-1951 | Lived in Littleton, NH where he bred pigeons |
| 1950 | Son Thomas born. Began correspondence with Charles Olson. Became American editor for Ranier Gerhardt's Fragmente |
| 1951 | Lived outside Aix-en-Province, France |
| 1952 | Daughter Charlotte born. Published Le Fou, his first book of poems. Moved to Majorca to establish Divers Press |
| 1953 | The Kind of Act of [poems] The Immoral Proposition [poems] |
| 1954 | The Gold Diggers [short stories] Taught at Black Mountain College First issue of Black Mountain Review, edited by Creeley, published in March |
| 1955 | Divorced from Ann MacKinnon All that is lovely in men [poems] |
| 1956 | Left Black Mountain College. If you [poems] Visited San Francisco Moves to Albuquerque Receives B.A. from Black Mountain College |
| 1957 | Married Bobbie Hall The Whip [collection of poems] Daughter Sarah born |
| 1959 | Daughter Katherine Williams born Moved to Guatemala A Form of Women [poems] |
| 1960 | Received M.A. from University of New Mexico Received Levinson Prize Included in The New American Peotry : 1945-1960 |
| 1961 | Instructor at University of New Mexico |
| 1962 | For Love : Poems 1950-1960 Instructor at University of British Columbia |
| 1963 | Moved to Placitas, NM Vancouver Poetry Festival The Island [novel] |
| 1964 | Received Guggenheim Fellowship Received Oscar Blumenthal Prize |
| 1965 | Berkeley Poetry Conference The Gold Diggers and other stories [short stories] Edited with Donald Allen New American Story Words [poems] Received Rockefeller Grant |
| 1966 | National Educational Television Film, "Poetry : Robert Creeley" |
| 1966-1970 | Visiting Professor at State University of New York, Buffalo |
| 1967 | Words [poems] Edited with Donald Allen The New Writing in the USA Colloborated with R.B. Kitaj on A Sight Robert Creeley Reads [recorded reading] |
| 1967-present | Named Professor of English at SUNY, Buffalo |
| 1968 | Taught at University of New Mexico The Finger [poems] Numbers [poems] |
| 1969 | Pieces [poems] The Charm [poems] |
| 1970 | Moved to Bolinas, CA Taught at San Francisco State University A Quick Graph : Collected Notes & Essays [criticism] |
| 1972 | A Day Book [journal and poems] Listen [a radio play] |
| 1973 | Edited Whitman: Selected Poems Moved to Buffalo His Idea [poems] |
| 1974 | Thirty Things [poems] |
| 1976 | Presences : a text for Marisol [prose] Away [poems] Selected Poems Divorced Bobbie Hall Creeley |
| 1977 | Married Penelope Highton |
| 1978 | Boundary 2 published a double issue called Robert Creeley : A Gathering |
| 1979 | Later [poems] |
| 1980 | First volume of Charles Olson and Robert Creeley : The Complete Correspondence published by Black Sparrow Press |
| 1981 | Son William born Awarded Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America |
| 1982 | NEA Grant |
| 1983 | Daughter Hannah born Hello : a journal [poems] DAAD Fellowship in Berlin |
| 1984 | Appointed David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, SUNY Buffalo |
| 1985 | Awarded Leone d'Oro Premio Speziale, Venice |
| 1987 | 2nd DAAD Fellowship in Berlin Awarded Frost Medal by Poetry Society of America |
| 1988 | Robert Creeley's Life and Work published Received Distinguished Fulbright Award as Bicentennial Chair in American Studies, Helsinki University |
| 1989-1991 | New York State Poet |
| 1990 | Named Capen Professor of Poetry and Humanities, SUNY Buffalo |
| 1991 | Autobiography [essay] |
| 1993 | Tom Clark's Robert Creeley and the Genius of the American Common Place published Received Horst Bienek Lyrikpreis from Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts Tales out of School : Selected Interviews |
| 1994 | Echoes [poems] |
| 1995 | Loops : Ten Poems |
Robert Creeley's Computer Files document the life work of a leading American poet of the 20th century, one of the core members
of the "Black Mountain School." They also document several important movements in American poetics in the second half of the
century. The computer files include Creeley's personal and professional correspondence, journals, business records, personal
mementos, games, and other documents generated and collected by him from 1988 to 1997.
Wherever Creeley's original arrangement of materials was encountered, his order has been respected. However, in many instances
the computer files arrived without any clear indication of Creeley's own intellectual organization and disk numbers were assigned
as the floppy disks were preserved. The disk numbers do not refer to the order in which the computer files were created and
researcher's should reference the date ranges to determine correct chronological order.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
American literature--20th century.
Computer files.
Floppy disks.