A Goddamn Big Car

(Photo: Poltroon Press)

We approach the monument that is Robert Creeley. Or, better, the work of Robert Creeley. It really deserves a series within our series ("Drivers Ed... For Poets"). Let's begin with one of his most famous poems, "I Know a Man":

As I sd to my

friend, because I am

always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his

name, the darkness sur-

rounds us, what

can we do against

it, or else, shall we &

why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for

christ's sake, look

out where yr going.

The poem has an interesting legacy. John Larner used Drive He Said as the title of his 1964 novel. Jack Nicholson kept it when he turned the book into his directorial debut in 1971. I doubt either have the drama of Creeley reading it (28 seconds). Listen here.