That's why I loved him
Abe Young to robert_creeley
Dear Prof. Creeley,
[How are you? Forgive me for the dive into my random ponderings, I wanted to get my thoughts down:]
I don't know where to start; so I say, What am I doing here.
For a moment after some time flipping through our massive BMC: Experiment in Art book again, it appeared clear to me--in one way to see it--what you did in our Black Mountain seminar, and what this was that struck my thinking-soul so proximately and lastingly: it was the simple speaking--the conversational, instead of objectifying, abstract lecturing--of things, in the space of our circular-set chairs around the room (of which I was so nostalgic in seeing last month, on a side note!); the distance from one to the other, with no "filtering"/standardizing middle. Since the beginning, when I tried describing the class to friends, I had always come out saying, "And he would tell anecdotes throughout class about him, his life, these people"; and I guess that's as close as learning, or anything really, ever got.
Painting's, and subsequently other art fields', move "away from the insistently pictorial to a direct manifestation of the energy inherent in the materials, literally, and their physical manipulation," (if I'm being incoherent and incomplete I'm sorry: I mainly looked through pg.
293 and some of the rest) really resembles in the way teaching-learning can be processed in the school--whatever that may be--I guess is the point I'm stumbling into now. I remember now one of the first sessions of class and I had blurted out that for my part I'd research the immediate setting and physical environment of the college & students; and that was fortunate also in the sense of our seminar to better have the "materials" of the place, Black Mountain.
And I try to understand recent times more this land that I increasingly understand to frame that I am a part of. So I guess it really now links back to my initial question at the beginning of this letter: in it, what is "here"? and is it to some degree in our experiences "not having history," this America, and thus leaving us less bogged to weild and use our vocuabulary, like John Chamberlain uses proximate car parts to create? What is this Place-for-me's history, or lack thereof; and on a more personal reflection, what eye do I see all of this from, part of me having come late into this America from a different nation/culture, another part of me more American and reaching halfway around the globe from my physical location to claim my parents, my childhood (3 yrs of it), and that Taiwanese soil?
--The hard part, for my obviously bewildered-in-world stage of self (which may never end as I understand), even after somehow answering the "here," I still have the earth-big What am I doing to tango forever with.
Forgive me for wandering so widely in my thoughts; let me center a bit. So what prompted me initially to write you were a few things: the quasi-revelation that brought a silly smile of satisfaction to my face, sensing that education, itself, is an art; or at least it runs in parallel with much of the creative materialization processes of art. And also the other thing that I've been wondering and wanting to mention: when I visited Providence last month, I left you a wooden
gift in the main office of the Brown writing building, so hopefully you received it--and if not, the man in the office then must have forgotten to mention it to you.
Professor Creeley, I hope you have been well, and, seeing that the semester must be winding down, that the seminar has been a satisfactory one for all of you. I'm sure it has. Happy
Thanksgiving, and the best to you and your family!
Best as always,
Abe
Dear Abe,
Thanks very much for that charming wooden sculpture, which did get to us sans problem -- and please forgive the slowness of reply and all. Your letters are very useful and locating for me -- and I hope for you too -- i.e., they give me the generous feedback which makes it all for real, like they say. Just now we are staggering on through Thanksgiving break here and the very forseeable end of the semester as all the Xmas shlock begins to flood in. Twiddling dial of car radio coming back here from New York yesterday, I happened upon first heard carol of
the impending season, that "drummer boy" one, sort of transitional I guess.
Not just since the bleak election but really for some real time, even years now, the presence of a global imperialism, call it, certainly the appetite for it, has made it so hard to find a locating place in the world. Almost as if the choices were either one\'s own immediate body, else the useless vastness of the world \'market." Columbus must have felt he was setting out from some place, even if it wasn\'t where he was from specifically --but now one has the sense of floating about in a wash of flotsam, trying to find significant "landfall" but increasingly frustrated to do so. Anyhow enough! Do write as you can and despite I take time to answer, I am delighted to hear from you.
Onward!
Best as ever,
Robert Creeley
Dear Prof. Creeley,
[How are you? Forgive me for the dive into my random ponderings, I wanted to get my thoughts down:]
I don't know where to start; so I say, What am I doing here.
For a moment after some time flipping through our massive BMC: Experiment in Art book again, it appeared clear to me--in one way to see it--what you did in our Black Mountain seminar, and what this was that struck my thinking-soul so proximately and lastingly: it was the simple speaking--the conversational, instead of objectifying, abstract lecturing--of things, in the space of our circular-set chairs around the room (of which I was so nostalgic in seeing last month, on a side note!); the distance from one to the other, with no "filtering"/standardizing middle. Since the beginning, when I tried describing the class to friends, I had always come out saying, "And he would tell anecdotes throughout class about him, his life, these people"; and I guess that's as close as learning, or anything really, ever got.
Painting's, and subsequently other art fields', move "away from the insistently pictorial to a direct manifestation of the energy inherent in the materials, literally, and their physical manipulation," (if I'm being incoherent and incomplete I'm sorry: I mainly looked through pg.
293 and some of the rest) really resembles in the way teaching-learning can be processed in the school--whatever that may be--I guess is the point I'm stumbling into now. I remember now one of the first sessions of class and I had blurted out that for my part I'd research the immediate setting and physical environment of the college & students; and that was fortunate also in the sense of our seminar to better have the "materials" of the place, Black Mountain.
And I try to understand recent times more this land that I increasingly understand to frame that I am a part of. So I guess it really now links back to my initial question at the beginning of this letter: in it, what is "here"? and is it to some degree in our experiences "not having history," this America, and thus leaving us less bogged to weild and use our vocuabulary, like John Chamberlain uses proximate car parts to create? What is this Place-for-me's history, or lack thereof; and on a more personal reflection, what eye do I see all of this from, part of me having come late into this America from a different nation/culture, another part of me more American and reaching halfway around the globe from my physical location to claim my parents, my childhood (3 yrs of it), and that Taiwanese soil?
--The hard part, for my obviously bewildered-in-world stage of self (which may never end as I understand), even after somehow answering the "here," I still have the earth-big What am I doing to tango forever with.
Forgive me for wandering so widely in my thoughts; let me center a bit. So what prompted me initially to write you were a few things: the quasi-revelation that brought a silly smile of satisfaction to my face, sensing that education, itself, is an art; or at least it runs in parallel with much of the creative materialization processes of art. And also the other thing that I've been wondering and wanting to mention: when I visited Providence last month, I left you a wooden
gift in the main office of the Brown writing building, so hopefully you received it--and if not, the man in the office then must have forgotten to mention it to you.
Professor Creeley, I hope you have been well, and, seeing that the semester must be winding down, that the seminar has been a satisfactory one for all of you. I'm sure it has. Happy
Thanksgiving, and the best to you and your family!
Best as always,
Abe
Dear Abe,
Thanks very much for that charming wooden sculpture, which did get to us sans problem -- and please forgive the slowness of reply and all. Your letters are very useful and locating for me -- and I hope for you too -- i.e., they give me the generous feedback which makes it all for real, like they say. Just now we are staggering on through Thanksgiving break here and the very forseeable end of the semester as all the Xmas shlock begins to flood in. Twiddling dial of car radio coming back here from New York yesterday, I happened upon first heard carol of
the impending season, that "drummer boy" one, sort of transitional I guess.
Not just since the bleak election but really for some real time, even years now, the presence of a global imperialism, call it, certainly the appetite for it, has made it so hard to find a locating place in the world. Almost as if the choices were either one\'s own immediate body, else the useless vastness of the world \'market." Columbus must have felt he was setting out from some place, even if it wasn\'t where he was from specifically --but now one has the sense of floating about in a wash of flotsam, trying to find significant "landfall" but increasingly frustrated to do so. Anyhow enough! Do write as you can and despite I take time to answer, I am delighted to hear from you.
Onward!
Best as ever,
Robert Creeley
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