A few years before his death, Robert Creeley
gave a reading of his poetry
at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine in Paris,
and near the end of it he said
“I’m going to read some new work now,
all of it plain old doggerel.”
It was.
As he read he seemed half amused, half embarrassed.
I cringed with a weird delight.
It was the most avant-garde thing I had seen in a long time.
The people gave each other furtive looks.
*
Recently I wrote a poem that said
that making scones was a good thing to do.
It could not have been more commonplace.
*
The first poems I remember reading
came from books like Best Loved Poems of the American
People.
“The gingham dog and the calico cat
side by side on the table sat,”
“But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck
out,” and one about the cremation of a man named Sam McGee.
I was around thirteen.
I thought some of them were pretty good.
“And the road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple
moor.”
Terrific! (But what’s a moor, exactly?)
*
I see Bob’s face
in that moonlight.
He taps with his whip on the shutters.
______________________________
This poem appears in Pink Dust by Ron Padgett published by NYRB Poets. Text copyright © 2025 by Ron Padgett.
