The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1 Read online

  THE COMPLETE POEMS OF

  A. R. AMMONS

  VOLUME 1

  1955–1977

  Edited by Robert M. West

  Introduction by Helen Vendler

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  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION by Helen Vendler

  Finishing Up

  OMMATEUM WITH DOXOLOGY (1955)

  So I Said I Am Ezra

  The Sap Is Gone Out of the Trees

  In Strasbourg in 1349

  I Broke a Sheaf of Light

  Some Months Ago

  I Went Out to the Sun

  At Dawn in 1098

  The Whaleboat Struck

  Turning a Moment to Say So Long

  Turning

  Dying in a Mirthful Place

  When Rahman Rides

  With Ropes of Hemp

  My Dice Are Crystal

  Having Been Interstellar

  Coming to Sumer

  I Assume the World Is Curious About Me

  I Struck a Diminished Seventh

  Gilgamesh Was Very Lascivious

  When I Set Fire to the Reed Patch

  The Grass Miracles

  I Came in a Dark Woods Upon

  A Treeful of Cleavage Flared Branching

  [Behind the I]

  One Composing

  In the Wind My Rescue Is

  [I should have stayed longer idle]

  A Crippled Angel

  Dropping Eyelids Among the Aerial Ash

  I Came Upon a Plateau

  Doxology

  EXPRESSIONS OF SEA LEVEL (1964)

  Raft

  Hymn (“I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth . . .”)

  Risks and Possibilities

  Terrain

  Nelly Myers

  Bridge

  Requiem

  Guide

  Expressions of Sea Level

  Unsaid

  Mechanism

  Batsto

  Mansion

  Close-Up

  Mountain Liar

  Prospecting

  Jersey Cedars

  Hardweed Path Going

  Bourn

  Grassy Sound

  Silver

  Concentrations

  River

  Motion for Motion

  Identity

  What This Mode of Motion Said

  Still

  The Golden Mean

  Nucleus

  CORSONS INLET (1965)

  Visit

  Moment

  Winter Scene

  Corsons Inlet

  Dunes

  Street Song

  Lines

  Coon Song

  Portrait

  Jungle Knot

  Dark Song

  Resort

  Upright

  Catalyst

  Loss

  World

  Butterflyweed

  Configurations

  Glass

  Morning Glory

  The Strait

  Spindle

  The Yucca Moth

  Anxiety

  Four Motions for the Pea Vines

  Hymn II (“So when the year had come full round . . .”)

  Hymn III (“In the hour of extreme // importance . . .”)

  Open

  Epiphany

  Prodigal

  Motion

  The Misfit

  The Watch

  Libation

  The Wide Land

  Thaw

  Whose Timeless Reach

  Ritual for Eating the World

  Driving Through

  March Song

  Gravelly Run

  TAPE FOR THE TURN OF THE YEAR (1965)

  6 Dec: (“today I / decided to write / a long / thin / poem . . .”)

  7 Dec: (“today / I feel a bit different . . .”)

  8 Dec: (“the way I could tell / today / that yesterday is dead . . .”)

  9 Dec: (“sunny again: // last night a plane . . .”)

  10 Dec: (“sunshine & shade / alternate at 32 . . .”)

  11 Dec: (“they changed the forecast / today . . .”)

  12 Dec: (“clouds came in soon after / dark last night . . .”)

  13 Dec: (“my book came today, Friday / the 13th . . .”)

  14 Dec: (“today / came in an / opposite way / of rain turning into snow . . .”)

  15 Dec: (“my poem went for a ride / today . . .”)

  16 Dec: (“first I heard / on the radio this morning / it was / 19 degrees . . .”)

  17 Dec: (“Sisyphus / struggling / with his / immortal / rock . . .”)

  18 Dec: (“today / broke as if under water . . .”)

  19 Dec: (“this ole world could be / one . . .”)

  20 Dec: (“today is cold: hit / ten last night: / and it not winter / yet . . .”)

  21 Dec: (“the jay was out / before sunrise / wheeling & dealing . . .”)

  22 Dec: (“we lost our mule Kate in / the fall / to a chattel mortgage . . .”)

  23 Dec: (“I was thinking when I woke / up . . .”)

  26 Dec: (“today is bright, warm . . .”)

  27 Dec: (“today is / cloudy / in several ways . . .”)

  28 Dec: (“today / is dim / again . . .”)

  30 Dec: (“today is 19 & / sunny . . .”)

  31 Dec: (“today the dry burn in / my nose of a cold / coming on . . .”)

  1 Jan: (“raining: / at the borderline & / promise / of snow . . .”)

  2 Jan: (“today / feels above freezing & is / sunshiny . . .”)

  3 Jan: (“today is warm & sunny: / may go up to 50 . . .”)

  4 Jan: (“3:20 pm: today is near- / ly shot aready . . .”)

  5 Jan: (“today is sunny & it may / be warm again . . .”)

  6 Jan: (“today is splennid again . . .”)

  7 Jan: (“today is rainy . . .”)

  8 Jan: (“today is sunny & warming . . .”)

  9 Jan: (“today ben / der clouds . . .”)

  10 Jan: (“today is windy as March / & sunny . . .”)

  NORTHFIELD POEMS (1966)

  Kind

  Height

  Joshua Tree

  Reflective

  Landscape with Figures

  The Constant

  Contingency

  One:Many

  Halfway

  Interference

  Saliences

  Trap

  The Foot-Washing

  Recovery

  Two Motions

  Composing

  Ithaca, N.Y.

  Consignee

  February Beach

  Self-Portrait

  Passage

  Peak

  Zone

  Muse

  Sitting Down, Looking Up

  Belief

  Song

  Orientale

  Mays Landing

  Sphere

  First Carolina Said-Song

  Second Carolina Said-Song

  Discoverer

  A Symmetry of Thought

  Holding On

  Uh, Philosophy

  The Numbers

  Empty

  Unbroken

  Fall

  The Wind Coming Down From

  Interval

  Way to Go

  UPLANDS (1970)

  Snow Log

  Upland

  Periphery

  Clarity

  Classic

  Conserving the Magnitude of Uselessness

  If Anything Will Level with You Water Will

  The Unifying Principle

  Runoff />
  Transaction

  Then One

  Further On

  Hope’s Okay

  Life in the Boondocks

  Spiel

  Guitar Recitativos

  Laser

  Virtu

  Choice

  Body Politic

  Apologia pro Vita Sua

  Offset

  Mountain Talk

  Impulse

  Needs

  Help

  Love Song (“Like the hills under dusk . . .”)

  Love Song (2) (“Rings of birch bark . . .”)

  Mule Song

  Script

  Holly

  Small Song

  Possibility Along a Line of Difference

  Cascadilla Falls

  Summer Session

  BRIEFINGS: POEMS SMALL AND EASY (1971)

  Center

  Mechanics

  Up

  After Yesterday

  Event

  High & Low

  Peracute Lucidity

  Increment

  Bees Stopped

  Storm

  Two Possibilities

  Medicine for Tight Spots

  Brooks & Other Notions

  Cougar

  This Black Rich Country

  Attention

  Return

  This Bright Day

  Look for My White Self

  Undersea

  Auto Mobile

  Wagons

  September Drift

  Civics

  He Held Radical Light

  Locus

  Circles

  Working Still

  Tooling Up

  Father

  Sumerian

  Hippie Hop

  Garden

  Hymn IV (“I hold you responsible . . .”)

  The Mark

  Loft

  Poetics

  Working with Tools

  Doubling the Nerve

  Making

  Dominion (“I said / Mr. Schafer . . .”)

  Round

  Tight

  The Woodsroad

  WCW

  Saying

  Looking Over the Acreage

  Gain

  Off

  Treaties

  Convergence

  Project

  North Jersey

  Ship

  Play

  Spinejacking

  Shore Fog

  Meteorology

  Exotic

  Hosts

  Crevice

  Transducer

  Mean

  Banking

  Elegy for a Jet Pilot

  Countering

  The Quince Bush

  Square

  Autumn Song

  Early Morning in Early April

  Reversal

  The Confirmers

  Involved

  Admission

  Mission

  Cut the Grass

  The Limit

  Concerning the Exclusions of the Object

  The Makers

  Levitation

  Medium

  Transfer

  Monday

  Pluralist

  Here & Now

  The Run-Through

  The Put-Down Come On

  The City Limits

  PREVIOUSLY UNCOLLECTED POEMS FROM COLLECTED POEMS 1951–1971 (1972)

  The Pieces of My Voice

  Chaos Staggered Up the Hill

  Eolith

  Hymn V (“Assure us you side with order . . .”)

  Spring Song

  Come Prima

  Terminus

  Back Country

  Christmas Eve

  Communication

  The Whole Half

  Bay Bank

  Money

  Fall Creek

  Utensil

  The Fall

  April

  Lion::Mouse

  Breaks

  Heat

  Definitions

  Path

  Mediation

  Snow Whirl

  Reward

  Timing

  Trouble Making Trouble

  Rome Zoo

  Alternatives

  Positions

  Reassessing

  Renovating

  Devising

  Emplacement

  Touching Down

  Spring Coming

  Ocean City

  Chasm

  Bearing Mercy

  Tossup

  Plexus

  Three

  Miss

  Celestial

  Correction

  Mirrorment

  Coming To

  Even

  Windy Trees

  Photosynthesis

  Making Waves

  Clearing

  The Account

  Winter Saint

  The Imagined Land

  The King of Ice

  Village, Town, City—Highway, Road, Path

  Lonely Splendor

  The Swan Ritual

  He Said

  One More Time

  Drought

  Image

  Equinox

  Russet Gold

  Essay on Poetics

  Plunder

  Triphammer Bridge

  Lollapalooza: 22 February

  Satyr Formalist

  Late Romantic

  Spaceship

  Cleavage

  Schooling

  Space Travel

  High Surreal

  Sharp Lookout

  Right On

  Rectitude

  Object

  Ground Tide

  Translating

  Sorting

  The Next Day

  Extremes and Moderations

  Mid-August

  Clearing the Dark Symbiosis

  Viable

  Precursors

  Lonesome Valley

  Delaware Water Gap

  Day

  Staking Claim

  The Eternal City

  The Shoreless Tide

  Grace Abounding

  Phase

  Hibernaculum

  Eyesight

  Left

  The Arc Inside and Out

  SPHERE: THE FORM OF A MOTION (1974)

  For Harold Bloom

  Sphere: The Form of a Motion

  DIVERSIFICATIONS (1975)

  Transcendence

  Insouciance

  Narrows

  Salt Flats

  Full

  Uppermost

  Lightning

  The Marriage

  Self-Portraits

  Double Exposure

  Currencies

  Bonus

  Emerson

  Meeting the Opposition

  Appearances

  Measure

  Delight

  The Stemless Flower

  Imperialist

  Poem

  Imago

  Light Orders

  History

  Self-Projection

  Outside-the-Household Hint

  Metaphysic

  Tussock

  The Make

  Juice

  Terminations

  Fundamental Constant

  Making It

  Scope

  Weight

  Ballad

  Three Travelogues

  Sight Unseen

  Facing

  Glass Globe

  Separations

  Circling

  Fix

  Weather

  Coward

  Crying Out

  Certainty

  The Flaw

  Triplet

  Design

  Rocking

  Ars Poetica

  Course Discourse

  Obtrusion

  Louise

  80-Proof

  Having to Do with Birth

  Limp Lump

  Mind

  Attenuations

  Turning

  Swipe

  P
aradise

  Satisfaction

  The Unmirroring Peak

  Pray Without Ceasing

  THE SNOW POEMS (1977)

  Words of Comfort

  One Must Recall as One Mourns the Dead

  Things Change, the Shit Shifts

  My

  Here I Sit, Fifty in the

  My Father Used to Bring Banana

  Have You Seen the Severe Waters

  Early October

  Terror of

  Ivy, a Winding)

  The Hieroglyphic Gathered, the Books

  Your Full-Service Mover, Madam

  When in Early

  The Arc

  There! the Light of Human Reason!

  Hard Lard

  Hard Fist

  8:45 A.M.—Doorbell Rings: Wife

  Shall Will Be Used Properly or Will Shall

  No Tirement Like Retirement

  Light Falls Shadow and Beam through the Limbo

  Mist Curtains Lower and Dissolve

  The Snow Is Fine-Sightless Today the Ground

  The Hen Pheasants Streak Out of the

  Dawn Clear

  If You Were Standing under the Elm and

  In the Old

  Forecast for Today (Winter’s Firstday)

  I Come in from the Snowy World

  Poetry Is the Smallest

  Christmas Eve Morning

  Analysis Mines and Leaves to Heal

  Snowed Last Night a Lot but Warmed Up

  Those in Ledge Fright Seek

  But If the Way Will

  The Sun Climbs Daily Higher

  A Seventeen Morning &

  The First Morning in a Few

  This Is

  Quilted Spreads

  Dung Ball, Round Graveyard

  I See Downhill a Patch

  The Stomach Is Quite

  My Neighbor Shakes Feed along

  Nature As Waterfalls

  The Wind Picks Up Slick

  Cold Didn’t Keep the Stuff

  Teeth Out

  When I Think of “the Poet

  You Can’t Get It Right

  The Perfect Journey Is

  Snow of the

  [here a month of snow]

  The Prescriptive Stalls As

  After the Dissolve

  A Sift, Sprinkling, or Veil

  Structureless Rage, Perhaps

  Tell What Will Not Tell Direct

  Spread It Thin

  Dark Day, Warm and Windy

  Like Fifty

  A 41 Morning, Still Cloudy

  Produce and Fuctifry

  I Look Up Guff and Find the First

  One at One with His Desire

  Dull Lull

  The Temperature Rose 15 Degrees over

  As for Fame I’ve Had It

  When One Is a Child One Lives

  Cloud Strays Rounded Up

  It’s Half an Hour Later Before

  This Poem Concerns

  The Word Cries Out

  I Woke Up at 6 and It Was

  A Flock of My Days

  You Can’t Imitate

  Spring’s Old Hat Is Older

  The Temperature Fell

  You Can

  Cunit

  It’s a Wonder the Body

  Today Was Like Vomiting

  It’s April 1

  I’m Unwilling

  The Sky Clabbered Up with

  A Single Fact

  It Does Not Rain in

  One Loves

  The Miltonic (Miltownic) Isn’t

  My Father Used to Tell of an

  Arm’s Length Renders One

  I’m the Type

  Snow Showed a Full Range

  No Matter

  It’s So Dry the Brook, Down

  Today Will Beat Anything