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“Filled with sharp irony and passionate insight, the more than 100 poems in the collection span the career of one of the deans of contemporary poetry. . . . Ammons makes you laugh and forces you to think hard about the way humans relate to natural phenomena and to themselves. From such simple, short expression emerge complex, often confounding ideas. New readers of poetry as well as those with an active interest in lyric verse will love this volume.”—BooklistAmazon.com Review
These short pieces frequently combine the discipline andprecision of haiku with the assured and humorous tone ofcracker-barrel philosophy. Ammons, who has been known to have plentyto say, cuts to the heart of the matter in poem after poem, suggestingworlds of unspoken wisdom and humor. "Success Story" is a good exampleof the project, as Ammons explains why he never "got on good" withthe rest of the world: "First I had nothing / the world wanted / thenthe world had / nothing I wanted." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Natural meditation and fun lyrics
There are some fun and expressive poems and lyrics here. Perhaps the ones I enjoyed best are the nature meditations, as "When the bee lands the morning glory bloom dips some and weaves". Somehave the feel if not the rules of haiku.There are also more playful and bawdy poems here as in "Their sex life: One failure on Top of another" or "Coward: Bravery runs in my family".Others such as Chasm or Cleavage use the arrangement of the words on the page to complement the poetry.If you're not up for Ammon's book-length poems (e.g. Sphere or Garbage), this provides a good introduction.

A superb selection of the author's most concise works
Ammons is a poet who has excelled in free verse in both large and small doses.This collection, drawn from the briefest poems throughout his career, includes many not previously published in book form.The overall arrangement makes the book highly satisfying as a sequential experience,with each little poem part of an overall summing up; but the volume is also quite amenable to being taken up, read about in and put down at will, for those brief moments that may be gainfully filled with poetry. For those interested in nature, philosophy and ironies of life ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of shorter poems won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1981.

Of this volume, the noted critic Harold Bloom has written, "A Coast of Trees represents A. R. Ammons at his strongest and most eloquent in the lyric mode. The book is an achievement fully comparable to his Uplands and Briefings. Among the poems likely to assume a permanent place in the Ammonsian (and American) canon are the majestic title lyric and 'Swells,' 'Easter Morning,' 'Keepsake,' 'Givings,' and 'Persistences.' Again Ammons has confirmed his vital continuities with the central Whitmanian tradition of our poetry, and his crucial place in that panoply." ... Read more

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Winner of the National Book Award.

"A. R. Ammons's poem with the unforgettable title is a defense of meaning—'things,' the poet says, 'are awash in ideality.' Garbage is an epic of ideas...the poem takes its place alongside Whitman's Song of Myself—an American classic."—citation for the 1993 National Book Award for PoetryAmazon.com Review
"Garbage," A.R. Ammons writes in this book-lengthpoem, "has to be the poem of our time because / garbage isspiritual, believable enough / to get our attention, getting in theway..."Talky and playful, the couplets of the National BookAward-winning Garbage propel one through the trash dump of20th-century meaning, as well as into the past and future, where"millennia jiggle in your eyes at night." This project, byturns wryly self-deprecating and densely philosophical, places Ammonsin the company of such recent epic funnymen as John Ashbery, RonaldJohnson, and, very self-consciously, William Carlos Williams. Like anygood epic, the poem begins in doubt, with Ammons wondering whether towrite the book or simply retire and live a life of leisure on SocialSecurity (plus a surely ample pension from his longtime CornellUniversity professorship). Like John Milton in the preamble to hisepic, Paradise Lost, Ammons uses the metaphor of a tree tofocus his poetic ambition. "I mean," he writes, "takemy yard maple--put out in the free / and open--has overgrown, itstrunk / split down from a high fork ... The fat tree, unable to stoppouring it on, overfed and overgrew ... It just / goes to show you:moderation imposed is better / than no moderation at all."Indeed, the poem's 121 pages seem at times nothing more than anattempt to buoy the moment between two extremes: exuberant falsehoodsat one end of the scale, cynical platitudes on the other. This"moderation" has served as Ammons' dominant aesthetic duringhis long poetic career, though Garbage's length and epicambitions disrupt his trademark austerity. Despite his tangentialquestioning of reality and time, the poem's ultimate wisdom lies inhow it imagines the actively good person, one who sees that

...life, life is like a poem: the moment it
begins, it begins to end: the tension this

establishes makes every move and movement, every
gap and stumble, every glide and rise significant

Customer Reviews (8)

Excellent Book of Poetry!
Garbage by A.R. Ammons reads--almost--like stream-of-consciousness writing, except that it really consists of well-structured, paired lines that take us,with the poet, on a journey through the junk that permeates not only our world but also our minds, hearts, and consciences.As an older reader (and English teacher for almost 30 years), I identify strongly with much that he says.And I like his unpretentious, but strong use of language.Ammons was a brilliant man with much insight.For those readers who say his book of poetry is junk, I invite them to take another look and readagain each section.I am ordering this book today after borrowing a copyfrom a friend.

Garbage the worst book ever
It's a stupid book and isnt worth while the read. You cnat understand a word the guy says. And it belongs in the trash.

Reverent refuse
This is one of the most thought provoking and inspiring poetry books i have ever come accross. Ammons, an acknowledged icon of modern day poetry opens the world beyond the lyrical ballad and onto a garbage dump. inquisitive, sardonic and exhilaratingly optimistic, Ammons makes us question the way we look at life while conducting us along the I-95

a timeless poet & master of the long poem
This book is brilliant, & so unique, through & through.Very particular music, with amazing, complex metaphors; a luminous lexus; a solid, earthy grip in the world with settings in real places such as route I-95 in Florida; & even humor.For example, at one moment in the book, there's an archetype which he comments on being "another Archie."His poetry never stops moving.I think his writing, especially this book with all its idosyncrasies & ideas, is very important poetry to know.

Who could trash this???
I think it's fantastic that Norton has reissued Garbage.It and the earlier Tape for the Turn of the Year are great examples of how the long poem can still be a fun, engaging, page-turner of a genre.Ammons was a crackerjack writer and he is at his best in Garbage.It starts off with an audacious premise - that garbage is a worthy subject for epic poetry.But, the next thing you know, Ammons is making you a believer with his astounding lyricism and exuberance.He then turns his romanticized trash heap into a springboard for a engaging discussion of life, art and the question of what is permanent.Garbage is bursting at the seams with Ammons' wry humor, old-fashioned homespun wisdom and refreshingly self-deprecating honesty about the befuddlement of the human condition.A hoot to read! ... Read more

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"There wasn't one page of his poem that didn't delight me."—Donald Davie, New York Review of BooksSphere is the second of A. R. Ammons's longpoems—following Tape for the Turn of the Yearand preceding Garbage—that mark him as a masterof this particular form. The sphere in questionis the earth itself, and Ammons's wonderfullystocked mind roams globally, ruminating onsubjects that range from galaxies to gasstations. It is a remarkable achievement,comparable in importance to Wallace Stevens'sNotes Toward a Supreme Fiction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wow
This book/poem is simply amazing and absolutely beautiful.Get it.Now. ... Read more

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“Oracular, almost biblical at times, andas deeply embedded in theparticulars of nature asthesuperb later poetry.”—John AshberyThis reissue of A. R. Ammons’s debut, publishedfive decades ago in a rare edition, with itspenetrating “Whitmanian chants . . . holds in it the mystery of his gradual development into amajor American poet, who will be read by themost discerning until the last syllable ofrecorded time” (Harold Bloom). ... Read more

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A reissue of a body of work spanning two decades from one of our most treasured poets. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Rare Eye, a Rare Voice
People rarely read poetry these days.It is a shame considering that poets like Ammons are out there.Ammons possesses a knack with detail and can make anything spring to life.Consider 'Catalyst'.'Honor the maggot/Supreme catalyst/ he spurs the rate of change/ (all scavengers arehonorable/ I love them all/ will scribble hard as I can for them'.OnlyAmmons can write a poem in praise of a maggot and have the reader ready toshout 'Yay, maggots!' by the end.Ammons also has an impressive ability toturn a phrase, such as 'and the wind whipped my throat/ gaming for thesounds of my voice.'Another one of the elements of Ammons poetry is hishumor. 'As soon as you stop having trouble getting down to earth youstart having trouble getting off the ground.' read one of his shortestpoems.'I Went Out to The Sun' is another great example of humor.'Themoon has been talking about you/ well what is it this time?/ she says it'sher own light' I won't lie to you, though.It does drags in parts.Ammonsscientific knowledge and his use of technical, while it does provide acertain richness, can get in the way.Another problem is the length ofsome of the poems included.This is a personal bias, but I HATE longpoems.Ammons more than makes up for it, however. EVERYONE SHOULD READTHIS BOOK. ... Read more

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Meditative, comic, emotionally wrenching, steeped in both the natural world and the life of the mind, the poetry of A. R. Ammons is at once cosmic in scope and intimate in its moment-to-moment transformations. With his mastery of description and cadence, his roiling wit and fearless gaze, Ammons was a philosopher of the everyday who found surprise everywhere he looked. "He is often witty, sometimes bawdy," writes editor David Lehman, "on a perpetual quest to find forms capacious enough for an imagination intent on finding a place for everything."

A compound, in editor David Lehman's words, of "wisdom, pathos, humor, mortal longing, and intimations of immortality," the work of A. R. Ammons is like nothing else in modern American poetry. Ammons's tireless formal invention and restless curiosity about every aspect of nature and of the mind are embodied in poetry that is effortlessly accessible and generous in its impulses. Whether spreading out in the long forms of Tape for the Turn of the Year or Garbage, or honing his perceptions down to the extreme brevity of his shorter lyrics, he holds tight to his vision of the way "all day / life itself is bending, / weaving, changing, / adapting, failing, / succeeding."

This new selection covering the whole range of Ammons's career offers a superb introduction to the pleasures and surprises of his work. His uncanny ability to balance wide-ranging abstract speculation with meticulous observation of natural phenomena, in poetry that encompasses moods of tragic pathos, low comedy, and seemingly casual profundity marks him as one of the preeminent figures in our recent literature ... Read more

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A. R. Ammons's selection of his work once again, as the critic Harold Bloom wrote of the earlierversion, "makes available the very best ofhim."To the "visions of clarity andterror" in that volume the poet now addsthe most important poems from his three bookspublished since. The resulting collection is the essential starting place for new readers, thequarry for those familiar with his work. Amongthe new poems is "Easter Morning,"which the critic Helen Vendler called "aclassic poem . . . a revelation." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Love Song
I bought it for one poem: "Love Song". It is the best poem about love and lust that I have ever read.

Precise observation of nature
Published in 1987, this book contains page-length poems selected by the author. You don't read these poems to get a story line, but rather a feeling of place.With Ammons its the precise observation of nature"Bees stopped on the rock", or a "Snow log".There arealso mirrors of the self, "of a life that did become" in the poemEaster morning. In some ways, he is a modern Transcendentalist, lookingat nature, observing carefully, and looking even deeper.I recommend thisbook to anyone, and its a good introduction to Ammons.

Precise observation of nature
Published in 1987, this book contains page-length poems selected by the author. You don't read these poems to get a story line, but rather a feeling of place.With Ammons its the precise observation of nature"Bees stopped on the rock", or a "Snow log".There arealso mirrors of the self, "of a life that did become" in the poemEaster morning. In some ways, he is a modern Transcendentalist, lookingat nature, observing carefully, and looking even deeper.I recommend thisbook to anyone, and its a good introduction to Ammons. ... Read more

Product Description
This intimate collection of essays addressed to the common reader pays tribute to one of the twentieth century's major poets.

Addressing every phase of A. R. Ammons's oeuvre, from his beginnings in the 1950s to his late masterpieces Garbage and Glare, this collection explores the personal side of a poet often still seen as forbiddingly abstract and intellectual. Included are essays by Helen Vendler, Alice Fulton, Harold Bloom, and John Ashbery, among others. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pilgrim
Friends called him Archie.He lived from 1926 to 2001.He had difficulties reading his work in public.Two of the mentors of A.R. Ammons were Josephine Miles and Josephine Jacobsen.

At age 26 he was the principal of an elementary school.He wrote of the marshes of New Jersey, CORSON'S INLET.1955 marked the end of the career of Wallace Stevens and the start of the career of A.R. Ammons.In prose Ammons wrote "A Poem is a Walk".John Wheelwright and A.R. Ammons both had tics and quirks asserts John Ashbery.

Ammons's landscape is American.He worked at a glass factory in New Jersey.He rose to the top rank of American poets quietly.As a whole, Ammons's poetry is religious in character.Ammons wrote pastoral poems.Frost's country speakers are more sociable than the abrupt utterances of Ammons.Natural facts, closely observed, tick through his verse.

Archie Ammons was a natural philosopher.He brought the short abstract lyric to perfection.He was prolific and maintained that anxiety was the source of his writing.Ammons wrote his book-length poems on adding machine tape. ... Read more

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This poem takes the form of a month-long journal, composed on a roll of adding machine tape. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A New Year's Poem
This book length poem was written with several things in mind.First, the title is literal.Ammons wanted to write a poem confined in length and width by composing the entire poem on a roll of adding machine tape, and the result was a diary of the last part of one year and the beginning of another.

Ammons seems to be at very ease with the notion of composing poetry, bringing forth an informal voice, probably a necessary step for such a long poem with such a purpose, and draws in the reader with a confidence that is refreshing.he breaks down the structure of the poem and uses deceptively simple, and straight forward language to mark the passing of time.Broken by days, Ammon expresses the essence of the poet's mind, allowing for the day's mood to dictate not only tone, but length and scope within the writing.

I feel very at home with this poem.I feel like sitting in a rocker with some classical piano music in the background whenever I open this book.I only regret thatcannot find time to read this book as often as I would like.Re-released to coincide with Ammon's book, Garbage, Tape for the turn is a wonderful book with quite a few quiet revelations that will keep you thinking all day long. ... Read more

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Briefings brings together more than eighty short lyrics that, as Harold Bloom writes, "maintain an utterly consistent purity of detached yet radiant vision."Bloom continues, "There are other American poets since Stevens who have composed a handful of memorable poems, but only Ammons has begun to show us a whole poetic world. More than his contemporaries, he has perfected a voice that, to cite Emerson, is 'ready to render an image of every created thing.'"

David Kalstone says, "The poems are, by and large, tough or wry meditations, striking out into strange landscapes, dreams or nightmares, which are seen with entire clarity, no blurring, as if this were the only way the mind could be unwound on the page. The book forms a journal of mental states, each poem finding a form and a scene for a very exact mental encounter of discovery. . . . 'Small and Easy' is the way everything is finally made to seem, like the rarest dancing, in which briefly and freshly the dancer shows us what space is like by showing how much he can possess." ... Read more

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"No contemporary poet, in America, is likelier to become a classic than A. R. Ammons."—Harold Bloom

Bosh and Flapdoodle is A. R. Ammons's last completed collection of poetry. Written over a six-week period, the book offers a series of candid, alternately hilarious and heartbreaking ruminations on age, illness, and death, while still finding room for the poet's always penetrating observations of daily life and natural events. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One punctuation mark (:) fits all
Recurring themes: the indignity of old age and disease, the meaning of life, the act of writing poetry, long-married life. Sometimes humorous; sometimes punny; sometimes over-reaching and demanding and more work than I'm willing to do.Ammons called this "prosetry," not poetry: Not completely accurate. ... Read more

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A superb long poem by the contemporary master of the form, Glare comprises two sections, "Strip" and "Scat Scan." The poem demonstrates, yet again, why National Book Award-winning author A. R. Ammons's poetic voice is a national treasure: by turns cosmic, self-inflating, self-deflating, eloquent, intimate, bawdy, comic, precise--and always unmistakably his own.Amazon.com Review
Harold Bloom, one of this country's most respected literarycritics, has this to say: "No contemporary poet, in America, islikelier to become a classic than A. R. Ammons." With Glare,Ammons once again has proven himself a master of the long poem, theshort line, and a deep and sympathetic humor in the face of life'sabsurdities.Ammons wants you to understand that your life, and thelives of those you love, would mean nothing to any of the sizablemeteors that could crash into the earth at any time, killing us all,but he doesn't stop there.The cosmic game is stunningly vast, hewrites, and, after all "it is / nice to be included, especiallyfrom / so minor a pew: please turn, in yr / hymnals, to page 'archiecarrying on / again' ..." Ammons is a great poet not content torest on his laurels. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

idiosyncratic brilliance
Here this master of the book-length poem constructs a long poem different from other long poems of his, at the height of his command over poetics.This is a book of thoughts; he prefers the word in a conceptual space over the word as image.He also has a crazy sense of humor.Sections of this long poem are sectioned into very small units, & the form of 2-line stanzas is almost (but not quite) constanr throughout the book.The poems move as you would imagine the sphere on the cover would roll -- with a steady, hard arcing sound.I don't know this for sure yet, but I have a feeling Ammons liked associating his poetry with spheres so much because spheres are the shapes with the greatest surface area to volume ratio, & his words are just as voluminous in their terseness.In other news, his poetry in this book is its own very exciting avant-garde.Until his death on 25 Feb, 2001, more & more throughout his life, he was always creating wholly new spaces for poetry to move through.This his last book keeps moving.

climax of genius
The writing in this book all bears Ammons's mark of experimental, architectonic genius.He writes with severe intellect & a kooky sense of humor.He tends to prefer abstract thinking to emotion or physical objects or location.Gripping read.

Spectacular vistas (democratic visas)
Ammons was a master of the concise lyric, the witty aphorism, and the unusual nature narrative: a dialogue between a man and a mountain, for example. But he shines in his long poems, his book-length poems, of which "Glare" is the final example. The poem enacts the workings of an expansive supple probing ever-restless mind as it turns over all that comes at it centripetally as if it occupied the center of the universe. In a sense he did that as well as any American poet since Robert Frost. That is one measure of his greatness. There are others in the glare of mourning.

Squinting at brilliance
Incredibly it's really difficult to find A. R. Ammons poetry in bookshops in the UK.As far as I know his work isn't actually published here & so enthusiasts have to rely on specialist shops or on ordering his books(from internet bookstores or elsewhere).I first came across hisworksevseral years ago in an anthology of American verse - & I've beenhooked ever since.'Glare' is a spectacular display of Ammon's deceptivelyeasy-looking conversational style.Confident, funny, disarmingly direct,it touches on the wonderful & terrible business of living & growingold.The language is razor edged & playfully fuzzy - in exactly theright places & amounts.The long poem (of which 'Glare' is a veryspecial example) has tripped-up many a gifted poet, but this has thesustained brilliance of someone competely at home with the form, someonewho knows how to set poetic pace & rhythm to fit the task in hand.Ona more commonplace note, it's a very engaging read.A book you can dip in& out of or settle down with.A book full of sparkiling wit,occasional glittering nuggets of wisdom, old-geezerish grumbling, rambling,ranting & poetry that will 'lift the top of your head off' as someoneonce said.He should be in the shops here.U.K. publishers please note.

Can't rate this book
There are more insights into language and life on any given page of this book than any poet has pulled off since, maybe, Auden. And I like Archie better than Auden. I agree with Harold Bloom: this poem is probablyimmortal. ... Read more

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The Snow Poems is the most recent book of poetry by an author who has been called "perhaps the most imaginative, innovative poet writing today."Critics and readers alike recognize Ammons's achievements: in 1973, his Collected Poems won the National Book Award for Poetry; in 1975, his long poem Sphere: The Form of a Motion was nominated for the National Book Award and received the Bollingen Prize for Poetry: in 1977, he received and award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. The Snow Poems, Ammons's twelfth book, is a major achievement by a major American Poet. ... Read more

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With characteristic economy, A. R. Ammons writes that "Brink Road lies off NY 96 between Candor and Catatonk." The very name suggests that we are ever in transition from one state of mind to another always on the edge of revelation. The more than 150 poems in Brink Road date from 1973 to the present, dealing with Ammons's concerns with language, mortality, and the forces underlying the natural world. With elegance, wit, and ruminative gravity, Brink Road is an important addition to one of the most enduring bodies of poetry of our time. It is his first collection of new work since Sumerian Vistas (1987). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Varied scenery on this road
There are a diversity of poems in this collection from 1973 to 1996. As he says "You mosey around, idling here and there for years". Along this route are some of the joys of nature, in the poem Local Antiquities: "the hills, out in the rain, antedate altars". Ammons also stops to examine him age, "I'm too rickety to squat" or perhaps to look at his directions: "I've pressed so far away from my desire ..". There are also road signs about poetry "Poems are forms of protective coloration by which a person insecure in his true colors takes trial stances ...".

There are short stretches of road such as the 11 syllable "The Story" to the final long hall, a 45 page poem "Summer Place" "so full of crazy ironies" that includes rebelling about being called a "nature poet" and "why no one expects to pay the poet" and "bowling champions make 12 times as much as poets", and lecherous views of "coeds with the pear-like rondure". By the way Brink Road "lies off NY 96 between Candor and Catatonk"
... Read more

Product Description
These essays on Ammons's poems begin with Tape for the Turn of the Year and culminate with Glare.Contributors examine Ammons's poetic processes and formal procedures, chaos theory and the poetics of geology and individual long poems from different stages of his career.An interview with the poet concludes the book.. ... Read more