Some time ago I was traversing through Papers Past, an archive of digitised newspapers managed by the National Library of New Zealand, when I fortuitously encountered six poems by Lola Ridge in the New Zealand Illustrated and The New Zealand Tablet.
Alan Riach interviews Robert Creeley, University of Waikato, New Zealand, July 26, 1995 (51:15): MP3 Creeley reads two poems: "I Know a Man" (0:25): MP3 (Creeley discusses the poem at the beginning of the interview)
On December 12 and 13, 1979, Robert Creeley hosted Kathy Acker at SUNY-Buffalo. He introduced her and in two sessions she read from her work and engaged with Creeley on conversation. PennSound now offers, in addition to the whole recording, segments by topic and work:
Some of Robert Creeley's reel-to-reel tapes given to PennSound after the poet's death
Robert Creeley recorded Ted Berrigan’s May 6, 1968 reading given in Buffalo. And Creeley gave the introduction (although, unfortunately, whoever was monitoring the tape recorder while Creeley got up to speak, only caught 27 seconds of the statement). This is the earliest recording of Berrigan currently in the PennSound archive. After his death, Creeley’s many, many recordings have been made available through PennSound. This 1968 Berrigan reading, now newly available on PennSound’s Ted Berrigan page, is one of the most remarkable poetry events Creeley documented.
Image of Creeley courtesy Francesco Clemente (from a 2002 oil painting); image of Dickinson courtesy Penelope Dullaghan (from a poster she created for the Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA).
In late September of 1985, Robert Creeley visited New College. He gave three lectures on Emily Dickinson (one each on September 20, 23 and 25) and a reading (September 23), introduced by Aaron Shurin and Duncan McNaughton. We at PennSound have now segmented the first of the three talks by topic. Many thanks to Anna Zalokostas for her superb editorial work. The recordings came to PennSound courtesy of David Levi Strauss. So here are the segments of the first lecture on Dickinson:
challenging the image of Emily Dickinson as eccentric, reactive, and fragile (11:06): MP3
on the comings and goings of the Amherst town and church, her secondary school education, and her daily interactions (10:39): MP3
Creeley in conversation with his mother on her first visit to Gloucester, probably summer 1970: audio file courtesy PennSound: (32:32): MP3 (Sidney Goldfarb comes into the conversation at the end.)
Editorial note: This interview took place on the second of two days of visits by the late Robert Creeley to the Kelly Writers House in 2000 as part of the Writers House Fellows program, which brings three writers to the University of Pennsylvania’s campus each spring for close interaction with students, faculty, and other literary aficionados.
Bobbie Louise Hawkins took these home movies from 1962 to 1965. She provided them to Robert McTavish for his film about the Vancouver poetry conference of 1963, The Line Has Shattered (2013), and then asked McTavish to send them to PennSound. Penelope Creeley and McTavish provided most of the annotations. We welcome any further identifications: let us know!
Creeley films by Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian
Willy’s Reading by Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian, 1982