If I Were Writing This

If I were writing this was the last book of poems completed by Robert Creeley and published during his lifetime (New Directions, 2005). The words he wrote to describe this book are oddly prophetic: “Age brings experience, not wisdom; age makes time actual – each day another – until there is no more. These poems have been my company, my solace, my feelings, my heart. When they cannot speak it will all be silence.” Though Creeley died in 2005, his poems are not silent – they vibrantly continue to embrace life while acknowledging, with no self-pity, the inevitability of death. The message (as he always ended his letters) is “Onward!”