Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Robert Creeley's "Lovers" presents a dark, reflective meditation on memory, intimacy, and the unsettling proximity of death. In this poem, Creeley intertwines the innocence of childhood exploration with the looming specter of mortality, all while questioning the boundaries between the living and the dead. Through sparse, direct language and vivid imagery, the poem evokes the tension between youthful curiosity and the inevitability of death, offering a complex reflection on the experience of lovers encountering something both mysterious and haunting.

The poem opens with a question: "Remember? as kids / we’d looked in crypt." This immediately places the speaker in a retrospective mode, addressing someone with whom they share a history. The act of "looking in crypt" evokes a sense of both curiosity and transgression. The speaker and their companion, as children, have entered a forbidden or sacred space, symbolizing their early encounters with death or the unknown. This memory of childhood exploration contrasts with the poem’s title, "Lovers," suggesting that the connection between the speaker and the addressee spans both innocence and intimacy, bridging past and present experiences.

The next question, "had we fucked?" introduces a sharp shift in tone, moving from a memory of childhood to a more explicit focus on the physicality of the adult relationship between the speaker and the addressee. The juxtaposition of this blunt question with the earlier image of childhood curiosity reflects the complexity of their relationship, where innocence, intimacy, and mortality are intertwined. The ambiguity of the question—whether the act took place in the cemetery or if it is just a provocative, lingering thought—adds to the poem’s unsettling atmosphere, as if the memory itself is fraught with both uncertainty and intensity.

The lines "we / walked a Saturday / in cemetery it / was free" introduce a more reflective moment, as the speaker recalls a mundane walk in a cemetery. The fact that it took place on a Saturday—typically a day of leisure—and that the cemetery was "free" suggests that this encounter with death was casual, almost incidental, as if they stumbled upon the cemetery as part of a regular day. The cemetery, with its flowers and lanes, provides a contrast between life and death, beauty and decay. The fact that it was "free" could also imply a kind of release or openness, as if the lovers found themselves in a space where death, and perhaps their relationship to it, was suddenly accessible and unfiltered.

The central image of the poem emerges with the lines, "we looked / in past the small / barred window into / dark of tomb when / it looked out at us." Here, the crypt or tomb becomes a symbol of the unknown, a place of death that the lovers approach with curiosity. The small, "barred window" suggests a barrier between the living and the dead, but the act of looking through it implies a desire to see beyond, to understand or confront what lies on the other side. The reversal in "when / it looked out at us" introduces an eerie moment: the tomb, or what it contains, seems to return the lovers' gaze. This moment blurs the line between observer and observed, living and dead, heightening the tension between the lovers’ youthful curiosity and the unsettling presence of death.

The description of the "face we saw white / looking out at us" adds to the poem’s ghostly atmosphere. The white face looking back at the lovers suggests a presence that is both spectral and human. The ambiguity of this face—whether it belongs to a living person, a dead body, or something else entirely—deepens the mystery of the poem. This face represents the unknowable aspects of death and perhaps the lovers’ own mortality, confronting them as they peer into the crypt.

The final lines, "inside the small / room was it man / who worked there? dead / person’s fraught skull?" reflect the speaker’s uncertainty about what they saw. The question of whether the face belonged to a man who worked in the cemetery or to a dead person emphasizes the blurred boundaries between life and death in this memory. The phrase "fraught skull" suggests that the image of death carries emotional weight, as if the sight of the skull is not just a physical reality but also a symbolic reminder of the fragility of life.

Structurally, "Lovers" follows Creeley’s characteristic use of short, enjambed lines, creating a fragmented, almost breathless rhythm that mirrors the speaker’s disjointed memory. The lack of punctuation and the fluidity between thoughts and questions reflect the speaker’s uncertainty and the blending of past and present, innocence and intimacy, life and death. This fragmentation emphasizes the complexity of the emotions and experiences being recalled, as if the memory itself is elusive and difficult to fully grasp.

Thematically, "Lovers" explores the intersection of love, memory, and death. The poem juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the explicitness of adult intimacy, while death remains a constant, lurking presence. The crypt and the barred window symbolize the boundary between life and death, while the act of looking into the tomb reflects the lovers’ curiosity about mortality and their own place in the world. The poem suggests that love and death are intertwined, both part of the same human experience, and that confronting one inevitably leads to an encounter with the other.

In conclusion, Robert Creeley’s "Lovers" is a haunting reflection on memory, intimacy, and the confrontation with death. Through sparse language and unsettling imagery, the poem captures the tension between the curiosity of youth and the more profound, unsettling realities of life and death. The ambiguous nature of the memory, the crypt, and the face looking back at the lovers all contribute to the poem’s exploration of the boundaries between life and death, innocence and experience. Ultimately, "Lovers" presents a meditation on the inescapable presence of death in human life, even in moments of intimacy and connection.

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