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Library Information & Colophon

Biography

Life & Death by Robert Creeley, Francesco Clemente, and The Grenfell Press, consists of an accordion book with silver reflective color printed with a gilt title in a black slipcase. There are seven poems that accompany photogravures of  “The Black Paintings” by Francesco Clemente. Clemente and Creeley meet in the 1990s in New York and collaborated on several books. The work they created, the tenure and spirit of it, has a humanistic and expressionist feeling. The paintings by Clemente are quite spiritual and similar to the text of Creeley. As succinctly written in a review: “Life & Death is a bony, moving, exigent book bearing on the essential experiences of a particular life, on an endlessly interesting consciousness…Welling with emotion while they eschew sentimentality, the poems are self-contained, but they admit themselves also a part of a company and a conversation.”1 Creeley said that juxtaposing poetry and painting "keeps shifting the emotional center… particularly working with someone like Clemente, with such effective particularizing imagery. Any person reading what I've written and seeing what he's made is moving back and forth between two emotional fields."2 The work combines the beautifully minimalist poetry of Creeley with the abstracted emotional work of Clemente to create an exquisite and haunting opus.

Footnotes

1 Gander, Forrest. “Book Review: Life and Death by Robert Creeley.” Boston Review October/November 1998: n. pag. Web. 22 May 2010

2 Midgette, Anne. “Words Worth a Thousand Pictures-Juxtaposing Poetry and Painting, Robert Creeley’s Collaborations Give Art New Meaning.” Wall Street Journal 22 September 1999: A21

Robert Creeley

(1926-2005)

Robert Creeley worked with collaborators his entire career, and towards the end of his life he wrote the poems with Clemente for Life & Death. This work was created in 1993, a few years before his monumental work of the same name Life & Death, a large volume of poetry which was published in 1998. Robert Creeley wrote minimalist poetry full of subtle emotions and powerful elusiveness. A prolific writer and active in many literary circles, he made weighty contributions to the field and altered the trajectory of contemporary poetry. Although often associated with the Black Mountain poets, his sparse poems were unusual for his time. While others vehemently expressed political views, Creeley distilled his complex emotions until only the essentials remained. As aptly described in his obituary in The Washington Post: “Mr. Creeley the poet sought to pare down and distill, while maintaining the power, potency and richness of the words and images that remained… his poems were impressionistic and improvisational.”1

Robert Creeley was born on May 21, 1926 in Massachusetts. He enrolled in Harvard in 1943, leaving for the American Field Service in India and Burma for 1944-45 but received his BA from Black Mountain College in 1955.2 He then obtained an MA from the University of New Mexico in 1960. He taught at the Albuquerque Academy, Black Mountain College, University of New Mexico, San Francisco State University, the University of British Columbia, and the State University of New York at Buffalo. Creeley published more than 70 books of poetry and prose as well as receiving two Fulbright fellowships, a Guggenheim fellowship, Yale University's biennial Bollingen Prize in Poetry and a National Book Award nomination.3

Footnotes

1 Ammann, Jean-Christophe. Francesco Clemente: Works 1971-1979. New York, NY: Deitch Projects, 2007.

2 Francesco Clemente- Biography 2008. Crown Point Press. Web. 21 May 2010

3 Holley, Joe “Robert Creeley, 78; Postmodern Poet, Professor” The Washington Post Friday, 1 April 2005: Page B06, Washington Post Database, Web. 17 May 2010

Francesco Clemente

(1952-)

Francesco Clemente has explored painting, drawing, altered photography, book arts and conceptual works as well as collaborating with artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat and Allen Ginsberg.1 His work shows both surrealist and expressionist references. He was self-taught and studied architecture in 1970 at the University of Rome. Clemente gives concrete form to mental states adding a synthesis of phantasms, mythology, and mysticism. His work intertwines with that of Robert Creeley-both artists illustrating often-indescribable feeling and states of mind. 

His work is collected by many museums, among them the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Tate Collection in London. He has had major shows and retrospectives at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Gagosian Gallery in New York.2 Born in Naples, Italy in 1952, he currently splits his time between Rome, Madras, and New York City.

Footnotes

1 Hrebeniak, Michael. “Robert Creeley: Black Mountain poet fired by an elemental energy.” The Guardian 5 April 2005. The Guardian Online: n. pag. Web. 17 May 2010

2 Holley, Joe. B06.

Links &References

Clemente References & Links

Ammann, Jean-Christophe. Francesco Clemente: Works 1971-1979. New York, NY: Deitch Projects, 2007.

Artist-Clemente-Biography. The Guggenheim Collection Website. Web. 22 May 2010.

Francesco Clemente- Biography. 2008, Crown Point Press. Web. 21 May 2010.

“Francesco Clemente: The Departure of the Argonaut.” MoMA No. 41 Autumn, 1986: 4.

Francis, Mark. “Francesco Clemente: Three Worlds. Philadelphia, Museum of Art and Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum.” The Burlington Magazine Vol. 133, No. 1055. February 1991: 148.

Smith, Roberta. “Clemente: Slouching Toward Anonymity.” The New York Times 2 December 1990: Section 2; Page 41.

Smith, Roberta. “Francesco Clemente.” The New York Times 25 May 2007: Section E; Leisure/Weekend Desk; Art in Review; Pg. 29.

Robert Creeley References & Links

“Robert Creeley.” The Academy of American Poets Online. © 1997 - 2010 by Academy of American Poets. Web. 19 May 2010.

Creeley, Robert. The Collected Essays of Robert Creeley. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989.

Faas, Ekbert. Robert Creeley: A Biography. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, © McGill Queen’s University Press 2001.

Gander, Forrest. “Book Review: Life and Death by Robert Creeley.” Boston Review. October/November 1998 issue. Boston Review Online. Web. 18 May 2010.

Holley, Joe. “Robert Creeley, 78; Postmodern Poet, Professor.” The Washington Post 1 April 2005: Page B06, Washington Post Database. Web. 17 May 2010.

Hrebeniak, Michael. “Robert Creeley: Black Mountain poet fired by an elemental energy.” The Guardian, 5 April 2005. The Guardian Online. Web. 17 May 2010.

MacAdams, Lewis and Linda Wagner-Martin. “Robert Creeley: The Art of Poetry.” The Paris Review No. 10 Issue 44, Fall 1968.

Midgette, Anne. “Words Worth a Thousand Pictures–Juxtaposing Poetry and Painting, Robert Creeley’s Collaborations Give Art New Meaning.” Wall Street Journal 22 September 1999: A21.