A Wicker Basket

The first line of Robert Creeley’s “A Wicker Basket” initiates the poem in the middle of a scene, or in media res. The grammatically conversational “Comes the time when it’s later” (Line 1) implies a series of events preceding the “later” time in the poem and infuses the scene with a sense of conclusion and reflection before any concrete events are introduced. Creeley’s second line relents and locates for the reader the poem’s scene: a table in a restaurant or bar, at least one with a “headwaiter” (Line 2). The line echoes the first in its highlighting of action: first, “comes the time” (Line 1), next “onto your table” something is placed (Line 2). The roundabout syntax of this line also works to propel the reader forward, leaving the object of the sentence hanging in suspense. Of course, the object is “the bill” (Line 3), which is placed on the table in an atmosphere of joviality, with “lively laughter” (Line 4) all around.

The poem’s second stanza continues to foreground the action in the poem, opening with the phrase, “Picking up change” (Line 5). In fact, the entire second stanza is made up of a single, long dependent clause that pushes off disclosing the grammatical subject to the following stanza. While the reader is not yet given information about the identity of the stanza’s subject, they are supplied with a host of imagistic descriptions of that subject’s body. As the unnamed character picks “up change,” his hands are “like a walrus” (Line 5). The simile comparing human hands to a walrus is already unconventional, but it becomes even more surprising placed in a poem with very few surprising images. The ungainliness of the simile works toward describing the ungainliness of the character, whose face is “like a barndoor’s” (Line 6).

Despite the second stanza’s focus on the clumsy largeness of the character’s features, it claims that his “head” is “without any apparent size, / nothing but two eyes” (Lines 7-8). This description’s emphasis on eyes foregrounds the character as an observer, as a locus of perception. All the action, disconnected from its context or object, is revealed to be a series of sensations and perceptions surrounding the “two eyes” of a central observer.

The poem quickly moves back into concrete territory after concluding the second stanza with a dash, signaling that the identity of the observer will be introduced. The character’s identity is supplied in a casual, conversational tone: “So that’s you, man, / or me” (Lines 9-10). The “you[ ]” (Line 2) of the first stanza merges with the “I” of the poet (Line 10). Here, the poem reveals itself to be a personal lyric, but one which explicitly invites its readers to place themselves in the shoes of the poet. In this way, Creeley emphasizes the universality of the events described in the poem even as he maintains the text as an expression of his personal experience.

This stanza also moves away from the action of the poem’s scene and instead communicates the poet’s opinions directly: he claims, “I make it as I can / I pick up, I go” (Lines 10-11). In other words, the speaker lives life by the seat of his pants, moving with easy confidence through each moment, emphasizing action and enjoyment over planning. This philosophy of life serves the poet well, who “go[es] / faster than they know” (Lines 11-12).

The poem shifts back to its scene, with the speaker exiting the restaurant out into “the street like a night” (Line 13). Presumably, the speaker is on the aforementioned street at night, but the poem’s simile compares the street itself to night in general. The stanza expands this simile, adding that the street is like “any night” (Line 14). The blurring of night street with night itself further communicates the drunken, clumsy contentment of the speaker with “hands like a walrus” (Line 5). Additionally, it continues to highlight the universality of the experience with which the poem is concerned.

Before the complexities of the surface-level simple simile can devolve into abstraction, Creeley abruptly announces, “but then, well, there she is, / old friend Liz” (Lines 15-16), using concrete events to re-immerse the reader in the scene. As with every stanza in the poem (except for the last), this one concludes on a cliffhanger em dash that propels the reader into the action of the following stanza.

The events in question begin with Liz “open[ing] the door of her cadillac [sic]” (Line 17) for the speaker to “step in back” (Line 18). The cadillac, uncapitalized perhaps to distance its specificity from corporate branding, nonetheless emphasizes America and Americanness. Mirroring the speed at which the speaker left the restaurant (“I go / faster than they know” [Lines 11-12]), the poet “step[s] in back, / and we’re gone” (Line 18-19). In the stanza’s final line, appearing after the period which adds reckless finality to the “and we’re gone,” Creeley adds an abrupt admission about Liz, namely that “She turns [him] on” (Line 20).

The following stanza moves back out of the concrete action of the scene and into the reflection of the poet. This shift, emphasized by a move from short to long lines, hinges on the poet’s matter-of-fact admission of his sexual attraction to his friend. Appearing as it does after this development in the poem, the reflection demonstrates the poet’s idle, confident comfort with his own feelings without requiring any action or worry. Instead, he reflects on the sumptuousness of his night, remarking that “there are very huge stars, man, in the sky” (Line 21). This hugely expanded scope could make the poet’s night and attraction seem small and unimportant, but instead it infuses his life with meaning. The poet experiences the simple pleasures of the night under the huge scope of nature in a state of gratitude, as if he is handed life’s joys from nature itself. This state of being is communicated by means of the poem’s most developed image, that “from somewhere very far off someone hands [the speaker] a slice of apple pie, / with a gob of white, white ice cream on top” (Lines 22-23). Like the stars, the pie comes from “very far off” (Line 22), aligning the giver of the treat with the expanse of nature.

Like the “cadillac [sic]” (Line 17), the “apple pie” (Line 22) with “ice cream on top” (Line 23) is archetypally American. Just as nature has given him a particularly American experience of pleasure, so the night provides the speaker with a host of sensory delights. Of course, upon being “hand[ed]” the “slice” (Line 22) the speaker “eat[s] it” (Line 24). Here, he is “nothing but” (Line 8) a mouth, just as earlier he was nothing but “two eyes” (Line 8). In other words, the speaker accepts with languid gratitude the bounty life offers. He does so not with the speed he “go[es] / faster than they know” (Lines 11-12), but instead savors the pie “Slowly” (Line 25).

In the poem’s final full stanza contains the poet’s recognition that his means of moving through the world attracts some amount of scorn: “certainly / they are laughing at me” (Lines 25-26). In addition to this mocking laughter, though, he also notes he is surrounded “all around” (Line 26) by a “racket / of these cats not making it” (Lines 26-27). Like the use of “man” (Lines 9, 21) to address the reader earlier in the poem, the “cats” of the final stanza reflect the casual dialect of the era. Despite the failures of the people around him, the poet is confident that “I make it // in my wicker basket” (Lines 27-28). Here, the titular “wicker basket” finally makes its appearance in the body of the poem. As a metaphor, the basket emphasizes the everyday and unornamented nature of the poet’s way of living in the world. The image also recalls the reed basket that supported the infant Moses on the river on which he was set adrift. Like an infant floating on a river, the speaker may seem in danger or comically rickshaw, but he ultimately has made his home in himself. Instead of joining the racket of the “cats not making it” (Line 27) all around him, the poet enjoys his simple means of living and finds his own definition of contentment.