By any measure-international reputation, influence upon fellow writers and later generations, number of books published, scholarly and critical attention-Robert Creeley (19262005) is a literary giant, an outstanding, irreplaceable poet. For many decades readers have remarked upon the almost harrowing emotional nakedness of Creeleyrs"s writing. In the years since his death, it may be that the disappearance of the writer allows that nakedness to be observed more readily and without embarrassment. Written by the foremost critics of his poetry,Form, Power, and Person in Robert Creeleyrs"s Life and Workis the first book to treat Creeleyrs"s career as a whole. Masterfully edited by Stephen Fredman and Steve McCaffery, the essays in this collection have been gathered into three parts. Those in "Form" consider a variety of characteristic formal qualities that differentiate Creeley from his contemporaries. In "Power," writers reflect on the pressure exerted by emotions, gender issues, and politics in Creeleyrs"s life and work. In "Person," Creeleyrs"s unique artistic and psychological project of constructing a person-reflected in his correspondence, teaching, interviews, collaborations, and meditations on the concept of experience-is excavated. While engaging these three major topics, the authors remain, as Creeley does, intent upon the ways such issues appear in language, for Creeleyrs"s nakedness is most conspicuously displayed in his intimate relationship with words. Contributors Charles Altieri, University of California, Berkeley Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Temple University Stephen Fredman, University of Notre Dame Benjamin Friedlander, University of Maine Alan Golding, University of Louisville Michael Davidson, University of California, San Diego Steve McCaffery, State University of New York at Buffalo Peter Middleton, University of Southampton Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University Peter Quartermain, University of British Columbia Libbie Rifkin, Georgetown University