Robert+Creeley-+Liliana+Rios

He wants to be a brutal old man, an aggressive old man, as dull, as brutal as the emptiness around him,
 * Self Portrait **

He doesn’t want compromise, nor to be ever nice to anyone. Just mean, and final in his brutal, his total, rejection of it all.

He tried the sweet, the gentle, the “oh, let’s hold hands together” and it was awful, dull, brutally inconsequential.

Now he’ll stand on his own dwindling legs. His arms, his skin, shrink daily. And he loves, but hates equally.

Robert Creeley was known to be against conformity in America. Through his poems, he always found a way to instill this message and get it across to his readers in different ways. His poem, “Self Portrait”, follows this path and deals with a man searching for individuality while aging. The tone of the poem is critical and a bit condescending. The speaker despises the “emptiness” surrounding him and claims to want “rejection of it all”. A sense of superiority is seen throughout the poem when the speaker talks about trying what everyone else was doing or what was expected and thinking that it was “awful” and “dull”. The first stanza states the speaker’s thesis. Instead of doing what would be expected, he wants to be “dull” and “brutal”, noting that these feelings are coming from what he has experienced in his surroundings. The word “brutal” is repeated twice in the first stanza, and versions of the word are repeated 4 times throughout the entire poem. Brutal can be defined as cruel or inhuman, but it is also defined as irrational and unreasoning. Both versions are used in different parts of the poem. When the speaker states the type of man he wants to be, he uses brutal in the sense of cruel because he claims he wants to be “aggressive” against what the world has given him. But when he describes the “emptiness around him” it seems more fitting for brutal to be used in the sense of irrational and unreasoning. The second stanza gives a support or explanation to his thesis stated in the first stanza. He doesn’t want “compromise” furthering the speakers point against conformity. The third stanza is a support for the last stanza where the speaker restates his thesis in a different manner. In the last stanza, the speaker claims he will now stand on his “own dwindling legs”. He states his legs with all their flaws as his own to get across the point that he seeks individuality as being dependent on someone else as seen in the third stanza. He claims that was “awful, dull” and repeats a form of the word brutal one more time. The final line of the poem juxtaposes the words love and hate bringing them together into the speakers plan for his life. The entire poem is written in third person, which shows the speaker’s separation and detachment from everything else. The man wants to be an individual as he ages and goes through life.

Here's a reading of the poem. Hearing it read helped me understand the poem better and find the accents where the author wanted the reader to pay close attention: http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2011/09/on-two-versions-of-robert-creeleys-self-portrait-by-daniel-nester.html

**The Rain** All night the sound had  come back again,  and again falls  this quite, persistent rain.

 What am I to myself  that must be remembered,  insisted upon  so often? Is it

 that never the ease,  even the hardness,  of rain falling  will have for me

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> something other than this, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> something not so insistent-- <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> am I to be locked in this <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> final uneasiness.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> Love, if you love me, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> lie next to me. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> Be for me, like rain, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> the getting out

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi- <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> lust of intentional indifference. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> Be wet <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> with a decent happiness.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In this poem named “The Rain” Creeley uses nature as a medium to portray an emotional exposure. The speaker declares his want for a different kind of happiness, one that is natural, unforced, basic, and complete, much like the rain. The rain in the poem evokes a sense of cleansing, comfort, or calming as the speaker delves into his deeper emotions, asking himself questions that the unpredictability and uncertainty of life bring. The speaker of the poem seems to be looking for a sort of love that is like the rain and is a calming presence, something pure that can be counted on and relied on There is also a search for identity seen throughout the poem. The first stanza is direct and to the point. It simply set the surroundings and introduces the rain. The clean and clear language Creeley uses give a sense that the entire poem and the words it uses are like the rain it is describing. The speaker then dives deeper and in the second through fourth stanzas as he asks himself rhetorical questions that deal with his place in life. The speaker feels as though at this moment nothing means anything to him. Neither the “ease” nor the “hardness” of the rain at this moment has anything for him. The speaker feels “locked”. In next stanza, the speaker then declares what he is missing or what he needs to break through his “final uneasiness”. In this stanza he explains the sort of love the speaker is searching for. Like the fluidity of rain, the speaker wants his “love” to be there for him like the rain, molding itself for his current needs. The final stanza works off of the one before it and continues with what he is searching for as a solution to his problem. The speaker wants a clear love, one that is natural like the rain. The tone is one of longing which is exemplified by the many questions the speaker poses for himself and the final plea for a specific solution. The speakers search for identity is finds a temporary and happy clarity in the rain.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is the image that goes through my mind when reading this poem: http://imageshack.us/f/20/watchingtherain.jpg/

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**The Answer** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Will we speak to each other <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">making the grass bend as if <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">a wind were before us, will our

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">way be as graceful, as <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">substantial as the movement <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">of something moving so gently.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">We break things into pieces like <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">walls we break ourselves into <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">hearing them fall just to hear it.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In the poem, “The Answer”, the speaker seems to be analyzing the method in which a question is answered between two people. The entire poem consists of two sentences: one that takes up the first two stanzas while and another that takes up the second third and final stanza. In the first stanza, the speaker ponders on how a conversation like this would occur between two people saying that as they speak to each other they may “make the grass bend as if/ a wind were before “them”. The grass bending could symbolize changing opinions or ideas as “the answer” is discussed and the wind portrayed before them makes it seem as though there are disagreements, and the two people are not totally on the same page. The second stanza acts as a continuation of the first stanza questioning if this conversation in determining an “answer” will be as natural and “graceful” as the wind bending the grass. The speaker doesn’t disregard the importance of the movement or the bending of grass as he mentions that something moving “so gently” can still be “substantial” in movement. This in a sense shows that changing of ideas or perspective is symbolized by the movement of the grass. Although the change may be small, it is still crucial in the final “answer”. The final stanza in this case I believe is the speaker’s thesis towards the matter. The tone shifts from pensive to critical. In the first two stanza the narrator simply describes how ideas change like grass blowing in the wind, but in the last stanza the speaker points out how we at times “break things into pieces like/ walls we break ourselves into”. The speaker is criticizing the fact that in seeking an “answer” we may start searching too hard and end up overanalyzing the situation therefore breaking the walls or breaking it into pieces. The final line comments on how the reason we break into everything or over analyze is purely for the need to pull everything apart. Saying that we do this for our own sake of “hearing [it] fall just to hear it” highlights the critical tone the speaker takes on in saying that there is no need for us to break everything into pieces just for an answer. At times the answer may be much more simple than we would think.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I couldn't help but have this image of an open field in my mind as I read this poem. The way the grass bends and the uniqueness of each blade represents all the different ideas or opinions that can come into finding an "answer": http://images.free-extras.com/pics/f/field_of_grass-609.jpg


 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">For Fear **

For fear I want to make myself again under the thumb of old love, old time

subservience and pain, bent into a nail that will not come out.

Why, love, does it make such a difference not to be heard in spite of self

or what we may feel, one for the other, but as a hammer to drive again

bent nail into old hurt?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Robert Creeley’s poem “For Fear” deals with a common theme of Creeley’s, which is individualism. In this case the speaker seems to want to retreat and become dependent on love or the other again because of fear. Like many of Creeley’s poems, the first stanza states the speaker’s thesis on the matter he is discussing. The speaker claims to want to “make myself again/ under the thumb/ of old love, old time”. Instead of saying he wanted to make himself over in terms of himself, the narrator emphasizes the fact that this “old love” and “old time” are the things that are setting the guidelines for how the speaker is going to make himself over. Repeating the word “old” stresses the point that the speaker is in a way backtracking to old ways. He is not moving forward in his own direction. Because the narrator blames this backtracking action on fear, the tone of the poem turns into one of self-disillusionment. It seems as though the speaker knows he shouldn’t base himself on the past and be dependent on it, but he does anyway because of the fear he feels. The second stanza backs up the thesis in the first stanza starting with the single word “subservience”. Subservience can be defined as useful in an inferior capacity or subordinate. This re-emphasizes the idea that the speaker is in a way tearing himself down because of his want for dependence on the “old” or the past caused by fear of perhaps independence. The second stanza uses dark language and comments that the speaker feels as though “old time” and “old love” have bent him “into a nail that will/ not come out”. This phrase again highlights the fact that the speaker feels trapped into dependence. The last three stanzas all tie together into one long rhetorical question. The speaker personifies “love” by addressing the question to “love” which seems to give this personified love even more power over the narrator. The narrator comments on the fact that voicing “what we may feel,/ one for the other” may in fact “drive again bent nail into old hurt”. Again, the word old comes up again which may mean that the speaker feels as though anything he does or say for himself will be directly affect by the past. In a way, the speakers fear is the “old” itself, which is actually also the thing holding him back from independence.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I also found a podcast with an interview with Robert Creeley where he discusses his interesting style of writing poetry. Although it's pretty long and doesn't discuss this poem specifically, listening to part of it helped me learn Creeley's mindset while he wrote his poetry and how structure played into his message: http://media.sas.upenn.edu/Pennsound/podcasts/PennSound-Podcast_09_creeley.mp3