Robert Creeley Papers

Robert Creeley was born 21 May 1926, in Arlington, Massachusetts, the son of Oscar Slade (a physician) and Genevieve (Jules) Creeley. He attended Holderness School in Plymouth, New Hampshire, before entering Harvard University (1943-1944 and 1945-1946), Black Mountain College (B.A., circa 1955) and the University of New Mexico (M.A., 1960). From 1945-1946, he served with the American Field Service in India and Burma as an ambulance driver. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Creeley has written novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, literary criticism and history. Creeley has been awarded the Levinson Prize (1960), D. H. Lawrence fellowship (for summer writing, University of New Mexico, 1960), National Book Award nomination (1962, for For Love), Leviton-Blumenthal Prize (1964) Guggenheim fellowship in poetry (1964-1965, 1971), Rockefeller Foundation grant (1966), Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Prize (1967), Shelley Award (1981), Frost Medal (1987), National Endowment for the Arts grant (1982), Deutsche Auftauschdienst Programme (DADD, providing residency in Berlin, 1983 and 1987), Leone d'Oro Premio Speziale (Venice, 1985), Fulbright Award (1988, 1995), Walt Whitman citation of merit (1989), named New York State Poet (1989-91), distinguished award from State University of New York at Buffalo (1989), D.Litt, University of New Mexico (1993), Horst Bienek Preis fur Lyrick (Munich, 1993) and The America Award for Poetry (Washington, 1995).

Poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, and editor, Creeley has had a varied career.

1950-1954 Founder and publisher, Divers Press, Palma, Mallorca, Spain

1954-1955 Instructor in English, Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, NC

1954-1957 Founder and editor, Black Mountain Review

1956-? Instructor at school for young boys, Albuquerque, NM

1961-1962 Instructor in English, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

1963-1966 Lecturer, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

1968-1969 and 1970-1971 Lecturer in Creative writing, San Francisco State College

1962-1963 Instructor in English, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

1963-1965 Lecturer in English, University of New Mexico

1965-1966 Visiting professor, State University of New York at Buffalo

1967-- Professor of English, State University of New York at Buffalo

1978-1980 Visiting professor, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

1978-1989 David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, State University of New York at Buffalo

1985, 1986 Visiting professor, State University of New York at Binghamton

1988 Bicentennial chair of American Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland

1990-- Capen Professor of Poetry and Humanities, State University of New York at Buffalo

1991-1992 Director of poetics program, State University of New York at Buffalo

Participated in numerous poetry readings and writers' conferences

Robert Creeley died 30 March 2005.