At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Creeley found himself securely placed among the grand elder statesmen of American poetry. His Bollingen and Lannan awards cemented his critical reception. Yet not all critics are impressed by the kind of poetry his career presents. Writing in an article on Creeley's mentor William Carlos Williams, Christopher MacGowan writes in The Columbia History of American Poetry that "The whole line of American poetry to which Williams is such an important figure, the line that includes such figures as Olson and Creeley, comes under similar attack from time to time." A great deal has been written about him in the last fifty years, both positive and negative. Carol Muske Dukes has said that "some critics find that he is occasionally hyper-oblique, self-consciously cute, and for all his brevity, overwrought." She quotes critic John Simon who said, "There are two things...