The speaker in Robert Creeley's poetry is most often intent and even overwrought, relentless, uncertain but always seeking, confident in his uncertainty rather than reliant on previous certainties, interested in approaches to complexity and tensions rather than momentary resolutions. The eye in Creeley's poetry sees things his way. Take, for instance, this view of “The Flower”: (Collected Poems p.194)
I think I grow tensions
like flowers
in a wood where
nobody goes.
Each wound is perfect,
encloses itself in a tiny
imperceptible blossom,
making pain.
Pain is a flower like that one,
like this one,
like that one,
like this one.
Notions of thematic coherence, the development of imagistic patterns, the celebration of meaning as outcome, don't apply. Creeley gets going on a poem, settles into saying something as...
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Citation: Wisker, Gina. "Robert Creeley". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 October 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1067, accessed 05 December 2025.]
