i caught the tail end of a creeley memorial last night in chicago. creeley’s work was important to me as a writer, but his friend denise levertov’s work was more important to me. as the readers finished with their stories, i thought not about creeley, who i have been thinking about since i heard about his death, but about levertov and how her lines and rhythm remain motivating forces for my work.
now that i am divorced, her work seems even more important to me, for in her early works she writes about love, and then as she remains married, she expresses the problems she encounters with love, and finally she moves to writing about living alone again. her work as she is divorcing (see the freeing of the dust) reminds me of my own experience. take, for example, lines like this “is just the beginning of a long train of times I’ll turn / to share a vision with you and find I’m dreaming.” a little more than a year ago, i felt the same sentiment. now, looking back, i admire her work because of the craft, but also because she explores the transforming ideas of love in the modern world while experiencing the contrasting feelings of being an individual struggling to stay alive and of needing/being forced to create.
as with many passings, creeley’s reminds me of my own lost figures. levertov lurks in my own shadows like caedmon, a figure she often wrote about in her last years. she has been dead for many years, but i have never said goodbye.
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