Sunday, September 17, 2023 “Creeley Song” by Peter Gizzi
all that is lovely
in words, even
if gone to pieces
all that is lovely
gone, all of it
for love and
autobiography
as if I were
writing this
hello, listen
the plan is
the body and
all of it for love
now in pieces
all that is lovely
echoes still
in life & death
still memory
gardens open
onto windows
lovely, the charm
that mirrors
all that was, all
that is, lovely
in a song
About the Poet
Peter Gizzi is an American poet, essayist, editor and teacher. He holds degrees from New York University, Brown University and the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he received his Ph.D in English in 1997.
He is the author of eleven full-length collections of poetry, including “In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems 1987-2011” (Wesleyan University Press, 2014), “Archeophonics” (Wesleyan, 2016), “Now It’s Dark” (Wesleyan, 2020), and his latest, “Fierce Elegy” (Wesleyan, 2023), in which this poem appears. He has also published several limited-edition chapbooks, folios, and artist books.
Gizzi’s honors include the Lavan Younger Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets (1994) and fellowships in poetry from The Fund for Poetry (1993), The Rex Foundation (1993), Howard Foundation (1998), The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (1999), and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2005). He has twice been the recipient of The Judith E. Wilson Visiting Fellow in Poetry at The University of Cambridge (2011, 2015-16). In 2018 Wesleyan published “In the Air: Essays on the Poetry of Peter Gizzi.”
Since 2001, he has been a professor in the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at The University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.