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Poetry books frequently have pretentious, academic titles. However, The National Book Award-winning American poet, A.R. Ammons (1926-2001), wrote a popular poetry book simply entitled Garbage (1993). The title of this book is both attention-grabbing and ironic, considering that Ammons writes with vivid, insightful observations of natural imagery. The poet adventurously explores the relationship between Nature and humanity in both solemn and comical tones.
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenPoetry books frequently have pretentious, academic titles. However, The National Book Award-winning American poet, A.R. Ammons (1926-2001), wrote a popular poetry book simply entitled Garbage (1993). The title of this book is both attention-grabbing and ironic, considering that Ammons writes with vivid, insightful observations of natural imagery. The poet adventurously explores the relationship between Nature and humanity in both solemn and comical tones.
Fig. 1 - A. R. Ammons is frequently compared to the poets Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wallace Stevens, and Walt Whiteman.
Archibald Randolph Ammons was born on February 18, 1926, in a rural American town outside of Whiteville, North Carolina. Ammons spent his early life on a tobacco farm. The Nature of the American countryside is a constant source of inspiration for his poetry. His poetry explores the relationship between humans and Nature in characteristically solemn and comical tones.
Fig. 2 - A tobacco farm in North Carolina — In A.R. Ammons's poetry, nature is a channel for human experiences and emotions.
A.R. Ammons never wanted to be a proper poet confined to rigid expectations and pretensions. He was a military man during World War II and started writing poetry while on a U.S. Navy warship in the South Pacific.
After his military service, A.R. Ammons pursued a biology degree at Wake Forest University. He graduated in 1949, became an elementary school principal, and married his wife, Phyllis Plumbo. Ammons went on to pursue a Masters in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.
Ammons was a prolific poet and wrote nearly 30 collections of poetry during his lifetime. His first poetry collection, Ommateum: With Doxology, was published in 1955. Some of his other significant poetry collections include Briefings (1971), Collected Poems 1951-1971 (1972), Sphere (1974), A Coast of Trees (1981), Garbage (1993), and Glare (1997).
The word ommatuem refers to the eye of an insect or crustacean. The word doxology means an expression of praise to God. What themes do you think A.R. Ammons's first poetry collection, Ommateum: With Doxology contains?
A.R. Ammons worked as a real estate agent, an editor, and a director at his father's biological glass company before beginning an academic career. In 1964, Ammons began working for the Ivy League School, Cornell University. He served as a Professor of English and the Poet in Residence until retiring in 1998. Ammons' famous students include the poets Alice Fulton, Ann Loomis Silsbee, and Jerald Bullis.
A.R. Ammons died of cancer at the age of 75. The poet died in his home in Ithaca, New York on February 25, 2001. He was survived by his wife, Phyllis.
A.R. Ammons won numerous awards for his unique poetry collections.
The poet won the National Book Award for Poetry in both 1973 and 1993 for his poetry books Collected Poems, 1951-1971 (1972) and Garbage (1993).
Ammons also won the Wallace Stevens Award, the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Medal, and the Ruth Lily Prize. In 1975, he won the Bollinger Prize for his book Sphere (1974); in 1981, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his poetry collection A Coast of Trees (1981).
The poet received the MacArthur Fellowship, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A.R. Ammons was an experimental poet when in came to form. He frequently wrote single-line poems, as well as single poems that made up entire books.
Ammons is famous for writing many monostich poems. A monostich poem is a poem that is made up of only one line of poetry (Ammons also wrote poems comprised of split monostich lines and multiple monostich lines separated by breaks). The brevity and compactness of monostich poems leaves the reader with a single, concrete message to contemplate.
Ammons’s short poems often have an instant impact and make use of imagery, humor, surprise, and irony. A popular monostich poem by A.R. Ammons is the poem “Coward,” from the poet’s 1990 collection, The Really Short Poems of A.R. Ammons:
Bravery runs in my family”
Notice that in short poems, the title is highly significant. In this case, the poet creates a sense of irony, seeing as calling someone a coward is the opposite of calling someone brave. Ammons juxtaposes cowardliness with bravery to catch the reader’s attention and to suggest that a coward is someone who relies on other people to be brave.
A.R. Ammons wrote several long poems that made up entire books. Some of his book-length poems include Tape for the Turn of the Year (1965), Sphere (1974), and Garbage (1993).
The poet‘s poem, Garbage, is presented in a 131-page book split into 18 sections. The entire poem is written entirely in couplets. Ammons uses this form to present his lines of poetry as individual snapshots as a part of a lengthy stream of ideas. The poem Garbage explores the ideas of the wash, waste, and decay of life through descriptions of mundane occurrences and nature. The poet presents this all from a uniquely witty, philosophical, and spiritual perspective.
A.R. Ammons wrote nearly 30 books of poetry. These include both his book-length poems, as well as his collections of shorter poems.
Briefings is a collection of over 80 short, lyric poems about life and nature. A.R. Ammons frequently writes in short lines of poetry with vivid bursts of natural imagery.
A lyric poem is a short, songlike poem typically used to convey strong emotions or feelings from the first-person perspective.
Sphere is a long poem written by A.R. Ammons, which won the Bollinger Prize. The title refers to the spherical shape of the Earth and explores zoomed-out and close-up views of life from galaxies to gas stations. Ammons' poetry is likened to that of the famous American poet, Wallace Stevens.
A Coast of Trees is a poetry collection that won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1981. Ammons's poetry balances scientific and subjective perspectives through imagery of the universe. Notable poems from A Coast of Trees include “Continuing,” “Swells,” “Easter Morning,” “Keepsake,” “Givings,” and “Persistence.”
A.R. Ammons wrote hundreds of poems, highlighted below are his notable poems “Cut the Grass,” “Elegy for a Jet Pilot,” “Continuing,” and “Getting Through.” All of these poems exhibit Ammonds's focus on nature and philosophy as a poet influenced by Transcendentalism.
Transcendentalism is a form of Romanticism developed by the American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson in the mid-1800s. The principles of Transcendentalism revolve around the idea that nature and everything in the world exist to lend meaning and individual experiences to the human soul.
“Cut the Grass” is a poem that exemplifies A.R. Ammons's classic style of intertwining meditation on nature with human musings. In the following excerpt of “Cut the Grass,” the speaker presents his own nervousness through the imagery of a dying “squash blossom” and a “stained zucchini”:
The wonderful workings of the world: wonderful,
wonderful: I'm surprised half the time:
ground up fine, I puff if a pebble stirs:
I'm nervous: my morality's intricate: if
a squash blossom dies, I feel withered as a stained
zucchini and blame my nature: and” (1-6)
A.R. Ammons uses few periods in his poetry to create a flowing feel to the words. The poet frequently uses colons to preface or distinguish ideas. What do you think is the effect of Ammons's use of colons in this poem?
Fig. 3 - Squash and zucchini plants produce large, vibrant flowers that wither as the plants mature.
“Elegy for a Jet Pilot” is a 20-line poem from his National Book Award-winning poetry collection, Collected Poems, 1951-1971. The poem is a modern elegy that touches on the idea of death from a depersonalized perspective. Rather than discussing grief and describing death, the poet emphasizes the motion of a jet as it takes off into the evening sky and ends up crashing into the brush of the American countryside.
The blast skims
over the string
of takeoff lights
and
relinquishing
place and time
lofts to
separation:” (1-8)
Notice how the poet uses short lines of poetry to create space to savor the language and imagery.
“Continuing” is a poem from A.R. Ammons's poetry collection, A Coast of Trees (1981). In this excerpt from the poem, Ammons uses anthropomorphism to reflect the speaker's feelings through the voice of a mountain. He makes a point that nature speaks to itself as people do:
what becomes of things:
well, the mountain said, one
mourns the dead but who
can mourn those the dead mourned;
back a way
they sift in a tearless
place:” (15-21)
Anthropomorphism vs. Personification
Anthropomorphism and personification are commonly confused literary devices. To best understand the difference between the two, remember that anthropomorphism is a literal attribution of human characteristics to non-human things. On the other hand, personification is a figurative attribution of human characteristics to non-human things.
A.R. Ammonds writing about a mountain that is literally talking is an example of anthropomorphism. If the poet were to say that the mountain was smiling down on the hikers, this would be personification. The mountain is not actually smiling, but the poet is implying that the mountain is so tall that it is as if it is amiably looking down at the people.
“Getting Through” is another poem from A.R. Ammons's poetry collection, A Coast of Trees (1981). The poem is a classic example of the American poet's fascination with the relationship between humans and nature. Once again, human states and emotions are presented through the imagery of nature:
the ledge bends way
over as if to contemplate
its solution in a spill:
right now I think
the skinny old arborvita's
Roots may be holding everything
together:” (9-15)
The poet's description of the water's ledge contemplating a spill is an example of personification. An example of anthropomorphism would be if the water were to say, “I am contemplating spilling over.”
The themes of the poem “Continuing” by A.R. Ammons are nature, growth, and decay.
The theme of "Getting Through" by A.R. Ammons is the relationship between nature and humanity.
A.R. Ammons wrote hundreds of poems. He wrote nearly 30 poetry books.
Archibald Randolph Ammons is a famous American poet who won the National Book Award for his poetry books, Collected Poems, 1951-1971 (1972) and Garbage (1993).
A.R. Ammons likely abbreviates his name because his full name, Archibald Randolph Ammons, is quite long.
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SIGNUP SIGNUPFlashcards in A. R. Ammons34
Start learningWho is the author of the poem “Elegy for a Jet Pilot”?
A.R. Ammons
What type of poem is “Elegy for a Jet Pilot”?
Modern Elegy
What is the meaning of the poem?
Death can be sudden, anticlimactic, and understated
What are two themes found in the poem?
Death and nature
Which of the following experiences likely influenced the poet’s writing?
His WWII military service
What is the atmosphere of the poem?
Calm
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