Exhibition Talk: Stephen Fredman on Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan

by JAMES MAYNARD

The Poetry Collection, together with the UB Poetics Program, will host Stephen Fredman’s lecture “Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan: A Poetic Friendship” on Friday, May 22, at 1 p.m. in 420 Capen Hall.

Dr. Stephen Fredman is professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame where he taught in the English Department from 1980 to 2017. A renowned scholar of 20th- and 21st-century American poetry and poetics, he is the author of five monographs: Poet’s Prose: The Crisis in American Verse (Cambridge University Press, 1983, 1990), The Grounding of American Poetry: Charles Olson and the Emersonian Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 1993), A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of Objectivist Poetry (University of Chicago Press, 2001), Contextual Practice: Assemblage and the Erotic in Postwar Poetry and Art (Stanford University Press, 2010), and American Poetry as Transactional Art (University of Alabama Press, 2020).

He has also edited or co-edited the volumes A Concise Companion to Twentieth-Century American Poetry (Blackwell, 2005); Form, Power, and Person in Robert Creeley’s Life and Work (University of Iowa Press, 2010); How Long Is the Present: Selected Talk Poems of David Antin (University of New Mexico Press, 2014); and Robert Creeley’s Presences: A Text for Marisol, A Critical Edition (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). In 2022, he published Pass Through: A Book of Memory Pieces (Dos Madres Press) and is currently at work on a study of the impact of John Dewey’s philosophy on American poetry and performance art.

This talk is in conjunction with the Poetry Collection’s exhibition Onward! A Centennial Celebration of Robert Creeley and part of For Love: A Centenary Symposium for Robert Creeley organized by the UB Poetics Program. More information about the symposium, including program details and registration is available online.

Earlier in the day at 11 a.m. in the UB CFA Gallery the UB Art Galleries will  host Dr. Alexandra Gold’s talk on Robert Creeley’s artist book collaborations in relation to their exhibition Robert Creeley: Active Complement. For more information and to register, visit the Galleries’ event page.