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Pond
Scum: The darkness sur-
rounds us
By Steve Finbow
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He had chicken tikka massala and I had rogan josh with Bombay duck; instead of wine, we had beer. That was the last time I saw Bob Creeley. Bob was over for a reading tour and I met him in an Indian restaurant in Fulham, London. He was staying with the publisher John Calder. We talked over dinner, not much about poetry; I remember a long discussion about the New England Patriots. Bob chastised me for my behaviour the previous night. Bob was reading at The Blue Nose Cafe in North London. The place was packed. Bob was a great reader. The poems were lyrical, song-like, he wasn’t a very animated reader like, say, Allen Ginsberg, but you knew he felt and formed every word as if he were composing as he read. After the reading, we went to the Arsenal Tavern. A few other people joined us: Mike Hart (RIP) from Compendium Books (the best bookshop in England and again RIP), Bob Cobbing (RIP), Barry McSweeney (RIP), I have a feeling Iain Sinclair was there (gladly not RIP) and Gilbert Adair (sadly not RIP).
Art By Nicholas Allanach
We'd settled into a corner, everyone was chatting and drinking, and I took an instant dislike to Gilbert. I don't know why. I really don't. And, to this day, even though his books look quite interesting – and he did translate The Void by Georges Perec – I have an insane hatred of the man and, yes, it was compounded by the fact that my girlfriend dragged me to see Love and Death on Long Island starring Jason Priestley. Gilbert was asking Bob to contribute to a magazine he was putting together. I'd already asked Bob for something for a magazine I was planning and was a bit pissed off, and a bit pissed to be honest. Gilbert said something that now I can't remember and I said, leaning across Bob for emphasis, ‘Fuck off, you smug little shit,’ or some other Wildeism. Bob looked at me and said, ‘Hey, Steve,’ and raised an eyebrow and I slunk off into the adjacent corner to drink with my friends and girlfriend.
So, as soon as I arrived at the restaurant Bob asked me why I had been so rude, why I'd acted like that, and I didn't know and felt chastened. If you're reading this, Gilbert, and I know you won't be – it's not in French, nor is it called Assimilating, Interrogating, Smuggling: Gender in Gilbert Adair and the Psychoanalytic Pathology of Otherness in Death of the Author (thank you PoMo Title Generator). Well, if you are reading this, I'm sorry – (not really). Bob was generous (I think he paid for the curry). After, we went to a pub and had a drink, I walked him home, and we shook hands and said we'd keep in touch and that was the last time I saw him. We wrote and emailed a few times. In one of the emails, shortly after the death of Allen Ginsberg, he reminded me of our first meeting...
It was 1989 and I was working as a researcher/editor for Allen Ginsberg. I had been a long-time Bob Creeley fan, when Bob Rosenthal told me Bob was going to be in New York for a reading, I inveigled an introduction. Bob was reading at a school on the upper East Side, if I remember correctly, and I went to hear him read and introduced myself. He said he was going to a party on the upper West Side and would I like to come along. Sure, I said. My memory plays tricks and I’m (not that) certain the host of the party was Helen Reddy. There were a few people from St Mark’s Poetry project there and I lost Bob to the crowd for most of the evening. At around nine, he found me and asked if I wanted to go downtown for a drink. I said yes, could we pass by my apartment on 13th and 6th so I could drop off my bag (full of unsigned Creeley books). We got a cab. Allen and Bob Rosenthal had instructed me that, if we went out drinking, I must ensure Bob got safely back to his hotel, otherwise Penny (Bob’s wife) would never forgive us all. I said no problem, how hard is it gonna be getting a 63-year-old, one-eyed poet back to his hotel?
We arrived at the apartment and I asked Bob to come up. Halfway up the stairs I remembered that among the prints on my walls were two of Bob taken by Allen – they held prominence on the main living room wall situated above a bookcase crammed with Bob’s books (including the complete Creeley/Olson letters). He’s gonna think I’m some kind of nutcase stalker, I thought. I opened the door, Bob took a seat, and I poured him a Makers Mark. Bob didn’t say a word and walked around the apartment looking at my collection of Ginsberg photos: himself, Burroughs, Corso, Bowles, etc. We decided to go to the Cedar Tavern for drinks. And that’s where it starts to get hazy. I was drinking beer and Bob, I think, was drinking double bourbons. We stayed and chatted (shouted at each other) about Bob’s work and his life and what I was doing in New York. I proposed that I write his biography and he said he was interested but that Ekbert Fass, author of Young Robert Duncan, had also expressed an interest.
Bob gave me his address and suggested I write to him and ask about his plans and I did and Ekbert said I should go ahead, so I contacted Black Sparrow and University of Southern California to see if they were interested but then I moved back to London, which is the story of a future column. And we got absolutely hammered. Actually, I got sledgehammered and Bob had to take me home. I phoned him the next morning to make sure he was OK and he was and I wasn’t.
You can find a better story than both of the above in Keith Abbott’s Downstream from Trout Fishing in America about a trip Bob Creeley made to the home of Richard Brautigan.
It is rare that a writer is so generous with his time and patience, but Bob was that rarity. He gave advice and support for countless poets and would-be poets. I, along with many others, will miss him. I’ll leave the last words to him.
Also the headache of
to do right by feeling
it don’t matter, etc.But otherwise it was one, or even two
the space of, felt
and one night I said to her, do you
and she didn’t.
Click here to read previous Pond Scum columns.
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Steve Finbow writes out of London, England. He has worked for the poet Allen Ginsberg, the writer Victor Bockris, and the artist Richard Long. His fiction, essays, and short plays appear, or will appear, in Eyeshot, 3am Magazine, Yankee Pot Roast, uber, Locus Novus, InkPot, Dicey Brown, The Guardian Online, and Pindeldyboz. He is currently working on a novel (Yeah, right). He can be contacted here.
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