A. R. Ammons

Literary critics have associated Ammons with earlier poets of the American romantic tradition, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. In line with these romantic roots, Ammons's poetry explores the individual soul through its connection to quotidian life and the natural world. Nevertheless, Ammons exhibits several qualities that distinguish him from his peers and predecessors. With a deep knowledge of natural phenomena, Ammons is noted for wielding a wide lexicon of scientific terms.{{Cite journal |last=Schneider |first=Stephen P. |date=Winter 2005–2006 |title=The Continuing Radiance of A.R. Ammons |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wb-upfk4I3oC |journal=The Mississippi Quarterly |volume=59 |issue=1–2 |pages=363–368 |isbn=9780393059991 }} He is also regarded for his witty—and sometimes coarse—humor, which balances out the gravity of his transcendentalist themes.

Ammons grew up on a tobacco farm near Whiteville, North Carolina, in the southeastern part of the state. He served as a sonar operator in the U.S. Navy during World War II, stationed on board the {{USS|Gunason}}, a destroyer escort.Gantt, Patricia (1992). "The A.R. Ammons Papers: Bits of Resistance Against Time." North Carolina Literary Review 1: 164–165. After the war, Ammons attended Wake Forest University, majoring in biology. Graduating in 1949, he served as a principal and teacher at Hattaras Elementary School later that year and also married Phyllis Plumbo.Wilson, Emily Herring (October 2007). "A Poet in Hattaras Village." Our State: Down Home in North Carolina: 204–208. He received an M.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.{{ cite web |url=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/48 |title=A. R. Ammons }}

In 1964, Ammons joined the faculty of Cornell University, eventually becoming Goldwin Smith Professor of English and Poet in Residence. He retired from Cornell in 1998.{{Cite book

| last=Lehman

| first=David

| chapter=A.R. Ammons' Life and Career

| year=2002

| editor-last=Hamilton

| editor-first=Ian

| title=The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English

| publisher=Oxford UP

| publication-date=1994

| isbn=0-19-866147-9

| url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00hami_0

}}{{cite journal |last=Patterson |first=John |year=1992 |title=A Dictionary of North Carolina Writers, A–Bl|journal=North Carolina Literary Review |volume=1|pages=153–154}} His students who went on to achieve acclaim as poets include Alice Fulton, Ann Loomis Silsbee, and Jerald Bullis.{{cite web|author=Daniel Aloi |url=https://as.cornell.edu/news/colleagues-celebrate-ar-ammons-temple-zeus |title=Colleagues celebrate A.R. Ammons in Temple of Zeus |publisher=Cornell Chronicle |date=2018-04-19 |access-date=2020-05-05}}

Ammons had been a longtime resident of the South Jersey communities of Northfield, Ocean City and Millville, when he wrote Corsons Inlet in 1962.Laymon, Rob. [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AC&p_theme=ac&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAEA9AE897C3FD8&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D "Noted Poet to Inject Life into Works in O.C. Visit"], The Press of Atlantic City, July 23, 1992. Accessed March 29, 2011. "Ammons wrote Corsons Inlet in August of 1962, after having lived in Northfield and Millville for many years."Miller, Michael. [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1294834231.html "Pulitzer Prize poet will read works in O.C."]{{dead link|date=February 2019|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, The Press of Atlantic City, June 22, 2007. Accessed September 13, 2015. "The late poet A.R. Ammons, formerly of Ocean City, Northfield and Millville, won the prestigious National Book Award."

When Ammons arrived at Cornell University in 1964 to teach creative writing, he had not yet finished his master's degree at the University of California, Berkeley.{{Cite web |date=February 26, 2001 |title=A.R. Ammons, Poet, Dies at 75 |url=https://apnews.com/article/5ec624b7644ad54a9e1b961546b7a104 |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=March 13, 2023 |website=Associated Press}} While somewhat self-conscious about his lack of academic pedigree compared to his colleagues, Ammons established himself quickly by completing and publishing six well-received volumes and earning tenure in 1969.{{Cite journal |last=Gilbert |first=Roger |date=March 1, 2012 |title=I Went to the Summit: The Literary Bromance of A.R. Ammons and Harold Bloom |journal=Genre |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=167–193|doi=10.1215/00166928-1507074 }} Ammons met literary critic Harold Bloom, who visited Cornell in 1968 as a fellow of the Society for the Humanities. Bloom is often credited with elevating Ammons's reputation in his early career, and the two maintained a lifelong relationship, frequently corresponding on both personal and literary subjects. Ammons also developed a close relationship with poet Robert Morgan, who joined the Cornell English Department 1971 and remained there alongside Ammons for nearly three decades.{{Cite journal |last=Gilbert |first=Roger |date=Spring 2010 |title=Sea and Mountains, Motion and Measure: The Complimentary Poetics of A.R. Ammons and Robert Morgan |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/0b318985f30c59bb4664bbb680f5744a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=48896 |journal=Southern Quarterly |volume=47 |issue=3 |pages=71–90}} Both from North Carolina, Ammons and Morgan bonded over their similar upbringings; and though they embraced distinct poetic styles, the two poets praised each other's work throughout their careers.

In step with his thematic focus on nature, Ammons drew inspiration for his work from the surrounding landscape of Ithaca, New York. His poems "Cascadilla Falls" and "Triphammer Bridge" pay tribute to outdoor landmarks in the area.{{Cite news |last=Nutt |first=David |date=April 21, 2022 |title='Ammons & the Falls' highlights poet's ties to Ithaca landscape |work=Cornell Chronicle |url=https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/04/ammons-falls-highlights-poets-ties-ithaca-landscape |access-date=March 13, 2023}}

During the five decades of his poetic career, Ammons was the recipient of many awards and citations. Among his major honors are the 1973 and 1993 U.S. National Book Awards (for Collected Poems, 1951–1971 and for Garbage); the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets (1998); and a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, the year the award was established.The A.R. Ammons Poetry Contest in his boyhood home Columbus County, NC was begun in 1992. http://arammonspoetrycontest.org/about-the-contest/{{Dead link|date=April 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

{{cite news

| title = Poet A.R. Ammons, twice a National Book Award winner, dead at 75

| publisher = Cornell News

| date = February 26, 2001

| url = http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb01/Ammons.obit.fc.html

| access-date = September 26, 2008

}}

Ammons's other awards include a 1981 National Book Critics Circle Award for A Coast of Trees;{{cite web |url=http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2008/06/in-retrospect-stephen-burt-on-ar-ammons.html |title=In Retrospect: Stephen Burt on A.R. Ammons |access-date=August 28, 2008 |author=Stephen Burt |date=June 17, 2008 |publisher=National Book Critics Circle}} a 1993 Library of Congress Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for Garbage; the 1975 Bollingen Prize for Sphere; the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Medal; the Ruth Lilly Prize; and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.{{cite web |url=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/48 |title=A.R. Ammons |access-date=August 28, 2008 |publisher=The Academy of American Poets}} He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978.{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=April 17, 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110510021801/http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf| archive-date= May 10, 2011 | url-status= live}}

Ammons commonly writes in two- or three-line stanzas, in which lines are unrhymed and strongly enjambed.{{cite journal |last=Lehman |first=David |year=2006 |title=Archie: A Profile of A.R. Ammons |url=http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15766 |url-status=dead |journal=American Poet |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517022758/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15766 |archive-date=May 17, 2008 |access-date=August 27, 2008 |df=mdy-all}} Some of Ammons's poems are as short as one to two lines—a form known as monostich.Hirsch, Edwatd 'A Poets Glossary' Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 2014 {{ISBN|9780151011957}} Others, like Ammons's book-length poems Sphere, Tape for the Turn of the Year, and Garbage, are hundreds of lines long.{{Cite journal |last=McGuirk |first=Kevin |date=1997 |title=A.R. Ammons and the Whole Earth |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1354543 |journal=Cultural Critique |issue=37 |pages=131–158 |doi=10.2307/1354543 |jstor=1354543 |issn=0882-4371}}

Ammons is noted for his idiosyncratic, minimalist approach to punctuation. The colon is Ammons "signature" punctuation mark, which he employs in many contexts to divide clauses while delaying a definitive end. Ammons avoids ending poems with periods. Some of his poems end in ellipses, or in no punctuation at all.

{{Incomplete list|date=March 2018}}

• Ommateum, with Doxology. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1955. Reprinted, with Preface by Roger Gilbert, Cornell University, by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York & London, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-393-33054-0}} (paperback)
• Expressions of Sea Level. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1964.
• Corsons Inlet. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1965. Reprinted by Norton, 1967. {{ISBN|0-393-04463-7}}
• Tape for the Turn of the Year. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1965. Reprinted by Norton, 1972. {{ISBN|0-393-00659-X}}
• Northfield Poems. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1966.
• Selected Poems. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1968.
• Uplands. New York: Norton, 1970. {{ISBN|0-393-04322-3}}
• Briefings: Poems Small and Easy. New York: Norton, 1971. {{ISBN|0-393-04326-6}}
• Collected Poems, 1951-1971. New York: Norton, 1972. {{ISBN|0-393-04241-3}} – winner of the National Book Award

[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1973 "National Book Awards – 1973"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
(With acceptance speech by Ammons and essay by Christopher Shannon from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog{{snd}}one "Appreciation" for Ammons's two awards.)

• Sphere: The Form of a Motion. New York: Norton, 1974. {{ISBN|0-393-04388-6}} —winner of the Bollingen Prize for Poetry
• Diversifications. New York: Norton, 1975. {{ISBN|0-393-04414-9}}
• The Selected Poems: 1951–1977. New York: Norton, 1977. {{ISBN|0-393-04465-3}}
• Highgate Road. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1977.
• The Snow Poems . New York: Norton, 1977. {{ISBN|0-393-04467-X}}
• Selected Longer Poems. New York: Norton, 1980. {{ISBN|0-393-01297-2}}
• A Coast of Trees. New York: Norton, 1981. {{ISBN|0-393-01447-9}} – winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
• Worldly Hopes. New York: Norton, 1982. {{ISBN|0-393-01518-1}}
• Lake Effect Country. New York: Norton, 1983. {{ISBN|0-393-01702-8}}
• The Selected Poems: Expanded Edition. New York: Norton, 1986. {{ISBN|0-393-02411-3}}
• Sumerian Vistas. New York: Norton, 1987. {{ISBN|0-393-02468-7}}
• The Really Short Poems. New York: Norton, 1991. {{ISBN|0-393-02870-4}}
• Garbage. New York: Norton, 1993. {{ISBN|0-393-03542-5}} – winner of the National Book Award

[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1993 "National Book Awards – 1993"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
(With acceptance speech by Ammons.)

• The North Carolina Poems. Alex Albright, ed. Rocky Mount, NC: NC Wesleyan College P, 1994. {{ISBN|0-933598-51-3}}
• Brink Road.New York: Norton, 1996. {{ISBN|0-393-03958-7}}
• Glare. New York: Norton, 1997. {{ISBN|0-393-04096-8}}
• Bosh and Flapdoodle: Poems. New York: Norton, 2005. {{ISBN|0-393-05952-9}}
• Selected Poems. David Lehman, ed. New York: Library of America, 2006. {{ISBN|1-931082-93-6}}
• The North Carolina Poems. New, expanded edition. Frankfort, KY: Broadstone Books, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-9802117-2-6}}
• The Mule Poems. Fountain, NC: R. A. Fountain, 2010. {{ISBN|0-9842102-0-2}} (chapbook)
• The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons, Volume 1 1955–1977; Volume 2 1978–2005: Edited by Robert M. West; Introduction by Helen Vendler. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2017 {{ISBN|9780393070132}} hardcover vol. 1; {{ISBN|9780393254891}} hardcover vol. 2

• Set in Motion: Essays, Interviews, and Dialogues (1996)
• An Image for Longing: Selected Letters and Journals of A.R. Ammons, 1951–1974. Ed. Kevin McGuirk. Victoria, BC: ELS Editions, 2014. {{ISBN|978-1550584561}}

• {{citation |last=Bloom |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Bloom |title=The Ringers in the Tower: Studies in Romantic Tradition |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1971 |isbn=9780226060491}}
• Diacritics 3 (1973). An entire "essays on Ammons" issue.
• {{citation |title=A.R. Ammons |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/a-r-ammons |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423033133/http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/a-r-ammons |url-status=live |archive-date=April 23, 2016 |work=Poetry Foundation |year=2011 |access-date=April 18, 2011 }}
• {{citation |last=Wilson |first=Emily Herring |title=The A.R. Ammons I Knew |journal=Wake Forest Magazine |url=http://magazine.wfu.edu/2011/01/20/the-a-r-ammons-i-knew/ |date=January 20, 2011 |access-date=April 18, 2011}}
• {{cite magazine |author=Chiasson, Dan |author-link=Dan Chiasson |date=December 4, 2017 |title=One man's trash : how A.R. Ammons turned the everyday into art |department=The Critics. Books |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=93 |issue=39 |pages=69–72 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/04/the-great-american-poet-of-daily-chores }}Online version is titled "The great American poet of daily chores".
• {{cite journal |last=Bevis |first=Matthew |title= Gravity's Smoothest Dream |journal=London Review of Books| volume=41 |issue=5 |pages=31–35 |date=7 March 2019 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n05/matthew-bevis/gravitys-smoothest-dream/ |access-date=April 8, 2019 }} Review of A.R. Ammons, The Complete Poems.

{{Reflist}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/a-r-ammons Examples of Ammons poetry]
• [https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/handle/10339/39175 A.R. Ammons Audio Collection] Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• [http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/ammons-r/ammons-d-grossvogel-interview-date A.R. Ammons Interviewed by David Grossvogel]
• [http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/1096-001 Reid and Susan Overcash Literary Collection: A.R. Ammons Papers (#1096-001)], East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J.Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University
• [http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/a/Ammons,A.R.html A.R. Ammons Papers 1944–1987] Southern Historical Collection, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
• [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ead/htmldocs/RMA02665.html Guide to the Archie Ammons Papers, 1945–2010], Division of Rare and Special Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York
• {{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1394/the-art-of-poetry-no-73-a-r-ammons| title=A.R. Ammons, The Art of Poetry No. 73| journal=Paris Review| date=Summer 1996| author=Lehman, David | volume=Summer 1996| issue=139}}
• [http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/ammons/ammons.htm Modern American Poetry], critical essays on Ammons's works

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ammons, A.R.}}

Category:Poets from North Carolina

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Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Category:MacArthur Fellows

Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Category:National Book Award winners

Category:People from Columbus County, North Carolina

Category:People from Millville, New Jersey

Category:People from Northfield, New Jersey

Category:People from Ocean City, New Jersey

Category:UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni

Category:Wake Forest University alumni

Category:1926 births

Category:2001 deaths

Category:Bollingen Prize recipients

Category:20th-century American poets

Category:20th-century American musicians

Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II

Category:United States Navy sailors