Robert Creeley’s book, Pieces , is very much concerned not only with a struggle to return to an original body or form, but the coming to terms with the possibility that such a return cannot exist. There are several ways Creeley takes on the idea of “form,” and the word itself is pervasive throughout Pieces. He starts with a quote from Allen Ginsberg’s Song: “I always wanted,/ to return/ to the body/ where I was born.” Those lines resonate in poems, like “The Boy.” “My mother had hair,/ and when I grew older, so did/ I, all over my face, which I wanted/ to be there, and grew a beard henceforth.” Clearly, we find the physical images relating to the desire to return to the womb. There is also the strong desire in Creeley’s voice to return to the physical forms of this world....
Links to my writing, and archived content I wrote for sites that are now defunct, but not (necessarily) because of what I wrote.