"The World" is a poem by American writer Robert Creeley. First published in 1962, the poem describes a man struggling to provide comfort to his wife in the middle of the night. Creeley was a prominent member of the Black Mountain Poets, a group of avant-garde writers based out of a small experimental institution in North Carolina called Black Mountain College. Along with figures like Charles Olson and Hilda Morley, he was attempting to break away from traditional poetic forms. Creeley and the other Black Mountain poets saw the line as the most essential element of structure and tended to write with an eye toward connecting individual moments of perception. Creeley's poetry often dealt with themes surrounding writing, identity, and relationships in a quietly innovative style. This poem is no exception, as it deals with domestic partnership in an unsettling and mysterious manner with imagery that is never quite obvious in its meanings.
The poem begins by describing a man trying to provide comfort to his wife at night. He briefly mentions their happiness in the daylight, before mentioning their subsequent difficulties in the dark. He then depicts a gray man coming into their room, which he comes to see is actually his wife's brother. The speaker tells him to leave, and the poem concludes with a strangely inconclusive image of the sun coming up. The poem is very representative of Creeley's style. It is composed of a restrained series of unrhymed tercets and makes frequent use of enjambment. It has a foreboding sentiment, but never seems to tip entirely into hopelessness. The language of the poem itself is relatively plain, but the imagery does not take on an entirely clear significance.
