Quotes from A. R. Ammons

No humbling of reality to precept.

Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone.

Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.

The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance.

In nature there are few sharp lines.

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.

Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.

I attended the burial of all my rosy feelings:I performed the rites, simple and decisive.

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.

the sunlight has neverheard of trees

Everything is discursive opinion instead of direct experience.

I don't know about you,but I'm sick of good poems, all those little ronduressplendidly brought off, painted gourds on a shelf.

Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.

Though I have looked everywhereI can find nothing lowlyin the universe.

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words ' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

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.

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.

I've given you my emptiness: it may not be unlike your emptiness: in voyages, there are wide reaches of water with no islands:

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.

I take the walk to be the externalization of an interior seeking so that the analogy is first of all between the external and the internal.

In nature there are few sharp lines

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.

Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.

Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without