9.22.2006
My first of many Robert Creeley plugs
The Name
Be natural,
wise
as you can be,
my daughter,
let my name
be in you flesh
I gave you
in the act of
loving your mother,
all your days
her ways,
the woman in you
brought from
sensuality's measure,
no other,
there was no thought
of it but such
pleasure all women
must be in her,
as you. But not wiser,
not more of nature
than her hair,
the eyes
she gives you.
There will not be another
woman such as you
are. Remember
your mother,
the way you came,
the days of waiting.
Be natural,
daughter, wise
as you can be,
all my daughters,
be women
for men
when that time comes.
Let the rhetoric
stay with me
your father. Let
me talk about it,
saving you such
vicious self-
exposure, let you
pass it on
in you. I cannot
be more than the man
who watches.
-RC from FOR LOVE (1962)
!!!Listen here at UBUWEB
Be natural,
wise
as you can be,
my daughter,
let my name
be in you flesh
I gave you
in the act of
loving your mother,
all your days
her ways,
the woman in you
brought from
sensuality's measure,
no other,
there was no thought
of it but such
pleasure all women
must be in her,
as you. But not wiser,
not more of nature
than her hair,
the eyes
she gives you.
There will not be another
woman such as you
are. Remember
your mother,
the way you came,
the days of waiting.
Be natural,
daughter, wise
as you can be,
all my daughters,
be women
for men
when that time comes.
Let the rhetoric
stay with me
your father. Let
me talk about it,
saving you such
vicious self-
exposure, let you
pass it on
in you. I cannot
be more than the man
who watches.
-RC from FOR LOVE (1962)
!!!Listen here at UBUWEB
# posted by will hubbard @ 11:04 PM 
Comments:
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Its funny I dont get any delineation between essentially male or essentially female in this poem. I see it more as a parent/progeny duality, but love it really for its so immediate rhythms. Did you listen to the audio file?, because I love the way he has woven the sort of stumbling beats into a poem that seems admittedly hard to write, and especially hard to then say.
ok, I dont want to argue this point into the ground, but.... you are clearly right about that line, and it has always sent a red flag up for me, tho that flag gets smaller and smaller each time i hear the poem read. the line is "be women (big pause) for men (big pause) when that time comes", catching a sort of incremental, searching sort of admittedly unreliable logic that I find mitigates the essential role-setting (and heterocentricity) of "be women for men". For all I can say about Creeley, I cannot say he was good on gender issues, or even that he acknowledged them. In this case I think the sense is one of a father worried over, and a bit embarrased to talk about his daughters' eventual entry into adulthood, and tho perhaps gender stereotyping is not what's most at stake in my mind, it is also impossible to reason away your reading. For myself, it is possible to go on faith that "be men for women" is equally possible, or "be men for men", these, nor really the actual version needing to imply anything about the sexual act itself, but allowing that reading too. For sure this, like many of his poems, celebrates the female in a way that risks putting her on a pedestal from which she can accomplish (or say) nothing, only breed, as in "pass it on in you". And yet somehow I trust him enough to mean nothing of the sort, which is either fanaticism or faith. And who can ever tell the difference between those two things?
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