A. R. Ammons
A. R. Ammons
Archie Randolph Ammonswas an American poet who won the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1973 and 1993...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth18 February 1926
CountryUnited States of America
numbers shapes patterns
With the first step, the number of shapes the walk might take is infinite, but then the walk begins to define itself as it goes along, though freedom remains total with each step: any tempting side road can be turned into an impulse, or any wild patch of woods can be explored. The pattern of the walk is to come true, is to be recognized, discovered.
certainly change directly enterprise poetry taken wonderful
That's a wonderful change that's taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends.
structure
Questions structure and, so, to some extent predetermine answers.
stress successful order
I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.
teaching reading class
Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition
taken discovery may
If a poem is each time new, then it is necessarily an act of discovery, a chance taken, a chance that may lead to fulfillment or disaster
circles white sun
The white sun like a moth on a string circles the southpole.
block sight hue
the walk liberating, I was released from forms, from the perpendiculars, straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds of thought into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends of sight ...
mushrooms answers
Attend to mushrooms and all other things will answer up.
i-can universe
Though I have looked everywhere / I can find nothing lowly / in the universe.
life
I have a life that did not become, that turned aside and stopped, astonished
half world wonderful
The wonderful workings of the world: wonderful, wonderful: I'm surprised half the time
sight events anticipation
Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.
grateful mean textbooks
I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.