“[Creeley’s relationship to Harvard] was more of a love-hate relationship,” recalled Louisa Solano, the owner of the historic Grolier Poetry Book Shop on Plympton Street—a place Creeley frequented as an undergraduate.

Solano said she knew Creeley well and was greatly distressed by the death of such a “warm” and “compassionate” man.

“I feel that the world of poetry has been shaken by his death,” Solano said. “The pantheon of modern poetry—[Allen] Ginsberg, Creeley, and [Phillip] Levine—is slowly passing away.”

Friends noted that Creeley was known for his emotional and intellectual techniques and his surprising resistance to revisions—claiming to have written his poetry intuitively rather than through a process of rewriting and revising.

Ruth Lepson—a poet and teacher who says she views Creeley as her mentor—recalls how he was often asked how his ideas flow so easily onto the paper.

“‘When you are swimming in the ocean you can’t control it,’” Lepson recalled Creeley saying.

“Spare as his poems are on the page, their large-heartedness is everywhere apparent,” said Stephen R. Williams ’06, noting the great respect and care he has for Creeley.

Lepson also discussed the ups and downs of Creeley’s life.

“Happily and sadly are perhaps the two words he wrote most—always seeing two sides,” said Lepson. “I’ve never seen such a happy-sad person in all my life.”

Writing and editing more than 60 works, Mr. Creeley received numerous honors for his efforts—including a Guggenheim fellowship, Yale University’s 1999 Bollingen Prize in Poetry, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, two Fulbright fellowships, and a National Book Award nomination.

He was also a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

He was involved with Modernists like William Carlos Williams, the Beats, and then the Black Mountain poets like Olson.

Creeley taught for 25 years at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Creeley is survived by his wife, Penelope, his first and second wives, Ann MacKinnon and Bobbie Louise Hawkins, and by his eight children.

–ANDREW R. MOORE