INTERVIEWER
I've heard a lot of stories about your fighting in those earlier days.
CREELEY
That's when the confusions of how to be with people became so
heightened I would just spill. It had to do with drinking, which I did a
lot of in those days. And pot. We were smoking pot pretty continuously
by about . . . let's see . . . I first had use of marijuana in India,
where I was in the American Field Service. We were in a barracks at one
point—about forty men, all ages. I think almost everyone in that
barracks was turned on almost all day long. We were in Central India.
There was literally nothing to do. It was an incredibly awkward climate
for us. I mean it was very hot and so we'd sit there sweating—drinking
was impossible—and getting very damned sick. I had a friend from
Southern California who suggested one day that there was an alternative.
He said, “Try this.” There was nothing mystical. It was very, like,
“Here, have an aspirin.” So the barracks switched and everything became
very delightful. The food was instantly palatable and life became much
more interesting. So much so that I remember returning from England on
the Queen Elizabeth and this friend and I continued smoking a lot of pot
on ship. In fact, we used to go into the toilet. A lot of people
depended on this toilet, and he and I would get in there and turn on,
then sort of sit around. Outside there'd be this great mass of people
standing and waiting, banging to get in there. They thought we were
homosexuals—a consideration aided by the fact that one night, I
remember, I staggered back into the room where there were these tiers of
bunks, and trying to get into my bunk I climbed into the wrong one. We
used to get up on the boat deck too, which was restricted. That North
Atlantic—it was absolutely silent and isolated, seeing that whole sea in
a beautiful full moon. Just beautiful.The Paris Review - The Art of Poetry No. 10, Robert Creely
