“Was Robert Creeley a solipsist?” That was another question I kept in mind while spending the weekend with Creeley’s work. And I’m not referring to Creeley’s personal psychology, as I don’t know anything about his private life and that not being relevant to his poetry. What is relevant is the extent to which he subscribed to solipsism for his aesthetical and philosophical developments. Some examples:


The choice is simply,
I will-- as mind is a finger,
pointing, as wonder
a place to be
[from 'The Finger']

egocentric
abstraction--
no one

else but
me again,
and people,

people as if
behind glass,
close

but untouchable.
[from 'Hong Kong Window']

In pajamas still
late morning sun's at my back
again through the window,
figuring mind still, figuring place
I am in, which is me,
solisistic, a loop yet moving, moving,
with these insistent proposals
[from Histoire De Florida]



This approach gives Creeley’s poetry a chiseled-from-the-air quality, crystallized with hard minded intent and its after-echoes of implicative meaning. On the other hand, Creeley can also seem like he’s roaring his singular phallus across the waters of his consciousness, being reductive rather than expansive. However, Creeley was able to find a comedic understanding to his solipsistic tendencies. From his last collection, On Earth:

Bye and Bye

Faded in face of apparent reality--
As it comes, I see it still goes on and on,
and even now still sitting at this table
is the smiling man who nobody seems to know.

Older, the walls apparently get higher.
No one seemingly gets to look over
to see the people pointing at the sky
where the old planes used to fly over.

I packed my own reality in a bag
and pushed it under the table,
thinking to retrieve it when able
some time bye and bye.