The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1
Page 82
(1951–55)
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 • Bees Stopped • Rack [later retitled “The Pieces of My Voice”] • Chaos Staggered Up the Hill • I Went Out to the Sun • Consignee • At Dawn in 1098 • The Whaleboat Struck • Turning a Moment to Say So Long • Turning • Libation • Dying in a Mirthful Place • When Rahman Rides • With Ropes of Hemp • Doxology • My Dice Are Crystal • Having Been Interstellar • Eolith • When I Set Fire to the Reed Patch • Coming to Sumer • I Struck a Diminished Seventh • In the Wind My Rescue Is • A Treeful of Cleavage Flared Branching • I Assume the World Is Curious About Me • Gilgamesh Was Very Lascivious • The Grass Miracles • I Came in a Dark Woods Upon • One Composing • A Crippled Angel • Dropping Eyelids Among the Aerial Ash • I Came Upon a Plateau • Sumerian • Whose Timeless Reach • Driving Through • Song • Choice • Interval • This Black Rich Country • Look for My White Self
(1956–60)
Apologia pro Vita Sua • Hymn • Hymn II • Hymn III • Hymn IV • Hymn V • The Watch • March Song • Requiem • Ritual for Eating the World • The Wide Land • Spring Song • Batsto • Come Prima • Composing • Mountain Liar • Gravelly Run • Prospecting • Jersey Cedars • Joshua Tree • A Symmetry of Thought • Thaw • The Wind Coming Down From • Return • Silver • Mule Song • Hardweed Path Going • Terminus • Close-Up • Grassy Sound • Bourn • Orientale • Possibility Along a Line of Difference • Back Country • Mansion • Prodigal • Mechanism • Guide • The Golden Mean • Risks and Possibilities • Bridge • The Foot-Washing • Coon Song • Terrain • Unsaid • Raft • Uh, Philosophy • Sphere • Epiphany • Muse • Concentrations • River • Lines • The Strait • Open • Catalyst • Christmas Eve
(1961–65)
Identity • What This Mode of Motion Said • Nucleus • Jungle Knot • The Misfit • Nelly Myers • Motion for Motion • Visit • Four Motions for the Pea Vines • Expressions of Sea Level • Discoverer • Event • One:Many • Still • The Yucca Moth • Two Motions • The Constant • Motion • WCW • Corsons Inlet • Saliences • First Carolina Said-Song • Second Carolina Said-Song • Dunes • February Beach • Moment • Upright • Glass • Center • Configurations • Ithaca, N.Y. • Holding On • Attention • Way to Go • Reflective • Butterflyweed • Street Song • Contingency • Trap • Halfway • Mays Landing • Storm • Landscape with Figures • Dark Song • World • Spindle • Winter Scene • Anxiety • Sitting Down, Looking Up • Communication • Elegy for a Jet Pilot • The Whole Half • Belief • Mountain Talk • Loss • Zone • Recovery • Interference • Bay Bank • Self-Portrait • Peak • Passage • Laser • Kind • Money • Height • Fall Creek • Utensil • Mission • The Fall • April • He Held Radical Light • High & Low • Convergence • Medium • Loft • Garden • Countering • Levitation • Virtu • Gain • Poetics • The Mark • Concerning the Exclusions of the Object • Dominion • Cougar
(1966–71)
Saying • Treaties • Lion::Mouse • Breaks • Locus • Admission • Heat • Cascadilla Falls • Definitions • Path • Love Song • Love Song (2) • The Woodsroad • Mediation • Crevice • Snow Whirl • Reversal • This Bright Day • Auto Mobile • Involved • Project • Impulse • Undersea • Transfer • Body Politic • Offset • Civics • Mechanics • The Quince Bush • Reward • Timing • Guitar Recitativos • Trouble Making Trouble • Rome Zoo • Small Song • Alternatives • Positions • Reassessing • Renovating • Devising • Emplacement • Touching Down • Spring Coming • Father • Script • Ocean City • Round • Chasm • Mean • Meteorology • Up • Bearing Mercy • After Yesterday • Making • Tossup • Plexus • Working with Tools • Three • Off • Circles • Miss • Square • Needs • Celestial • Correction • Mirrorment • Coming To • North Jersey • Exotic • Even • Hosts • Help • Windy Trees • Monday • Transducer • Photosynthesis • Making Waves • Clearing • Spinejacking • The Account • Holly • Winter Saint • Hippie Hop • Increment • Shore Fog • Banking • Tooling Up • Wagons • Summer Session • The Imagined Land • The Confirmers • The Makers • September Drift • Tight • The Put-Down Come On • The King of Ice • Here & Now • Autumn Song • The Limit • Looking Over the Acreage • Spiel • Snow Log • Play • Classic • Clarity • Periphery • Peracute Lucidity • Working Still • Upland • Doubling the Nerve • Ship • Early Morning in Early April • Then One • Medicine for Tight Spots • Village, Town, City—Highway, Road, Path • Lonely Splendor • Life in the Boondocks • Brooks & Other Notions • Hope’s Okay • The Swan Ritual • He Said • The Run-Through • Runoff • The Unifying Principle • Cut the Grass • Further On • Pluralist • If Anything Will Level with You Water Will • Conserving the Magnitude of Uselessness • One More Time • Transaction • Drought • Image • Equinox • Russet Gold • Essay on Poetics • Two Possibilities • Plunder • Triphammer Bridge • Lollapalooza: 22 February • The City Limits • 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
“The Pieces of My Voice”: 1955. Appeared as “Rack” in CP51–71; the poet changed the title for SP77 and SP86.
“Chaos Staggered Up the Hill”: 1953.
“Eolith”: 1952.
“Spring Song”: May 2, 1957. First appeared in Compass Review, no. 3 (Summer 1958).
“Come Prima”: Dec. 12, 1957. Italian for “as before,” pronounced KOHmay PREEma—used as a direction in music.
“Terminus”: Aug. 4, 1959. First appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Jan. 1971. A terminus is a boundary or an ending point; the Roman god Terminus was the god of boundaries. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote two poems titled “Terminus”; the one beginning “It is time to be old” is frequently anthologized.
“Christmas Eve”: Dec. 24, 1960. First appeared in The Hudson Review, vol. 22, no. 4 (Winter 1970).
“Communication”: Feb. 16, 1964. First appeared in The New York Times, Jan. 13, 1965.
“The Whole Half”: Feb. 26, 1964.
“Bay Bank”: July 9, 1964. As revised for RSP, with “redwing” replacing “red-winged” in line 1.
“Money”: Sept. 4, 1964.
“Fall Creek”: Sept. 27, 1964. First appeared in Epoch, vol. 21, no. 3 (Spring 1972). Fall Creek runs through Ithaca’s Fall Creek Gorge and empties into Cayuga Lake.
“Utensil”: Nov. 1, 1964.
“The Fall”: Mar. 13, 1965. First appeared in Abraxas, no. 5 (1972).
“April”: Apr. 10, 1965.
“Lion::Mouse”: Apr. 10, 1966.
“Breaks”: Apr. 10, 1966.
“Heat”: June 1966.
“Definitions”: July 9, 1966. Lillabulero, Second Series, nos. 10–11 (1971).
“Path”: July 29, 1966. First appeared in Abraxas, no. 5 (1972).
“Mediation”: Aug. 27, 1966. The comma at the end of line 1 was added for RSP.
“Snow Whirl”: Mar. 21, 1967.
“Reward”: Aug. 2, 1967.
“Timing”: Fall 1967. First appeared in The Nation, Dec. 23, 1968.
“Trouble Making Trouble”: Fall 1967. First appeared (as “Front”) in Foxfire, vol. 2, no. 1 (1968).
“Rome Zoo”: Fall 1967.
“Alternatives”: Dec. 19, 1967. The reference is to a remark attributed to the Greek mathematician Archimedes (third century BC), whose interests included the physics of levers: “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.”
“Positions”
: Dec. 1967.
“Reassessing”: Dec. 1967.
“Renovating”: Dec. 1967.
“Devising”: Jan. 3, 1968.
“Emplacement”: Jan. 15, 1968.
“Touching Down”: Feb. 4, 1968.
“Spring Coming”: Mar. 1968.
“Ocean City”: Apr. 14, 1968. First appeared (as “The Gardens”) in Contemporary Poets of South Jersey, a small 1968 anthology listing no publisher or place of publication. The anthology grew out of a series of poetry events sponsored by the Ocean City Cultural Arts Center.
“Chasm”: Apr. 18, 1968.
“Bearing Mercy”: Apr. 25, 1968.
“Tossup”: May 3, 1968.
“Plexus”: May 3, 1968.
“Three”: May 9, 1968.
“Miss”: May 22, 1968. Cheops is the Greek name for Khufu, a twenty-fifth–twenty-sixth-century BC king of Egypt who brought about construction of the Great Pyramid (also called the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops) in Gaza. Here the reference seems to be to the pyramid itself rather than the man.
“Celestial”: May 1968. Line 10: In Greek myth, Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus; both were held prisoner by King Minos of Crete, until Daedalus fashioned wings with which they could escape. Ignoring Daedalus’s warning not to fly too close to the sun (which would melt the wax holding the wings together), Icarus fell into the sea and drowned.
“Correction”: May 1968.
“Mirrorment”: May 1968.
“Coming To”: Spring 1968.
“Even”: Spring 1968.
“Windy Trees”: May 27, 1968.
“Photosynthesis”: May 28, 1968.
“Making Waves”: May 28, 1968.
“Clearing”: May 29, 1968.
“The Account”: June 2, 1968.
“Winter Saint”: June 8, 1968.
“The Imagined Land”: July 7, 1968.
“The King of Ice”: Sept. 1968.
“Village, Town, City—Highway, Road, Path”: May 18, 1969.
“Lonely Splendor”: May 26, 1969.
“The Swan Ritual”: June 14, 1969.
“He Said”: June 15, 1969.
“One More Time”: July 18–20, 1969. First appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Oct. 1970.
“Drought”: Sept. 6, 1969.
“Image”: Sept. 14, 1969.
“Equinox”: Sept. 28, 1969.
“Russet Gold”: Oct. 11, 1969.
“Essay on Poetics”: Dec. 24–28, 1969. First appeared in The Hudson Review, vol. 23, no. 3 (1970). As reprinted in Selected Longer Poems, the poem includes an unfortunate error: the tercet beginning with “simple by grandeur” (lines 145–47) appears a second time as lines 169–71, in place of the tercet beginning “trees, and a sense.”
Lines 159–61: “ME.,” “AS.,” “G.,” and “IE.” are abbreviations for “Middle English,” “Anglo-Saxon” (i.e., Old English), “German,” and “Indo-European,” respectively.
Lines 423–24: “No ideas but in things” was a motto of the poet William Carlos Williams (1883–1963).
Line 471: Ithaca is at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake (Ammons transposes the name), the largest of New York’s Finger Lakes. Stewart Park is a lakeside city park.
Lines 573–75: The quotation from the English art critic and painter John Ruskin (1819–1900) is from his 1868 lecture “The Mystery of Life and Its Arts.”
“Plunder”: Jan. 30, 1970. See Emily Dickinson’s poem beginning “This was a Poet” (no. 446 in R. W. Franklin’s edition).
“Triphammer Bridge”: Feb. 19, 1970. First appeared in Modern Occasions, vol. 1, no. 2 (Winter 1971). The bridge spans Fall Creek Gorge in Ithaca.
“Lollapalooza: 22 February”: Feb. 22, 1970.
“Satyr Formalist”: Mar. 14, 1970. In an unsent letter to Harold Bloom, dated “Ides 1970,” Ammons includes a draft of the poem, explaining that he wrote it after beginning Bloom’s book Yeats. He explains the thought behind the poem: “The tragedians by moaning and groaning think they purchase knowledge of and immunity from death but they, like us—and like the satyr—will meet it merely uncomprehendingly: so why shouldn’t we be like the satyr and meet it for the first time when it is uncomprehendingly there and meanwhile spend our lives pinching broads in the dark? That way it would be like any other event in the garden.”
“Late Romantic”: Mar. 14, 1970.
“Spaceship”: May 2, 1970.
“Cleavage”: May 4, 1970.
“Schooling”: June 15, 1970.
“Space Travel”: Jan. 26, 1970.
“High Surreal”: June 26, 1970. First appeared in Lillabulero, Second Series, nos. 10–11 (1971).
“Sharp Lookout”: June 29, 1970. In an unsent letter of the same date to Harold Bloom, Ammons explains the poem was inspired by playing with John, who, pretending to be a lifeguard, had announced he was keeping a “sharp lookout.”
“Right On”: July 3, 1970.
“Rectitude”: July 4, 1970. First appeared in Epoch, vol. 21, no. 3 (Spring 1972).
“Object”: July 6, 1970.
“Ground Tide”: July 12, 1970. First appeared in Lillabulero, Second Series, nos. 10–11 (1971).
“Translating”: Aug. 1, 1970. First appeared in Lillabulero, Second Series, nos. 10–11 (1971).
“Sorting”: Aug. 1, 1970. Lillabulero, Second Series, nos. 10–11 (1971).
“The Next Day”: Aug. 8, 1970. Ammons includes the poem in an unsent letter (dated August 13, 1970) to Harold Bloom, noting that he wrote the poem on Phyllis’s birthday.
“Extremes and Moderations”: Aug. 18–23, 1970.
Lines 114–16: Pre-Columbian Mayan religious ritual included human sacrifice; victims sometimes had their still-beating hearts extracted.
Lines 247–54: The first book referred to here is With Respect to Readers: Dimensions of Literary Response, by Walter J. Slatoff, one of Ammons’s colleagues in the Cornell English Department. Another departmental colleague, Robert Kaske, would be the person who gave Ammons a collection by the north Georgia poet Byron Herbert Reece (1917–1958). Like Reece, Jesse Stuart (1906–1984) was a southern Appalachian poet; William Rose Benet, John Hall Wheelock, John Gould Fletcher, and Alfred Kreymborg were poets and editors of note.
“Mid-August”: Aug. 15, 1970. First appeared in Abraxas, no. 5 (1972).
“Clearing the Dark Symbiosis”: Aug. 14, 1970.
“Viable”: Aug. 16, 1970.
“Precursors”: Aug. 26, 1970.
“Lonesome Valley”: Aug. 28, 1970.
“Delaware Water Gap”: Sept. 7, 1970. First appeared in Lillabulero, Second Series, nos. 10–11 (1971). The Delaware River, which runs between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, makes an S-shaped pass through mountains. The Gap is at the south end of what is now the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.
“Day”: Sept. 19, 1970. First appeared in Lillabulero, Second Series, nos. 10–11 (1971).
“Staking Claim”: Sept. 27, 1970.
“The Eternal City”: Oct. 9, 1970. First appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Apr. 1971.
“The Shoreless Tide”: Oct. 26, 1970.
“Grace Abounding”: Oct. 31, 1970. First appeared in Beyond the Square: A Tribute to Elliott Coleman, edited by Robert K. Rosenburg. Baltimore, MD: Linden Press, 1972.
“Phase”: Nov. 8, 1970.
“Hibernaculum”: “Solstice 1970–1971.” Early titles for this poem were “Cud” and “Up and Around and Down and Out.” Hibernaculum is a Latin word meaning “winter residence.” The term refers to a structure protecting a bulb or a bud through winter; it also refers to the shelter of a hibernating animal. Ammons wrote the poem in the winter of 1970–71.
Section 3:
Line 21: In CP51–71, the line ended with a comma after “though.” Ammons’s TSS of the poem include that comma, but in his marked copy of the book, he indicates uncertainty about its appropriateness. He dropped it when he reprinted the poem in Selected Longer Poems, and so it is omitted here.
Section 18:
Line 156: In Ammons’s TSS of the poem and in CP51–71, the line ended with the colon after “again,” so that the verb “accost” beginning line 157 was imperative. In his marked copy of CP51–71, however, he added the subject “I” at the end of line 156, and that pronoun does appear (in that position) in the poem’s reprint in SLP—so it is included here.
Section 20:
Line 177: “Consomme” is here corrected to “consommé.”
Sections 28–29:
Lines 252–55: Growing up in Whiteville, North Carolina, Ammons attended New Hope Elementary School and Whiteville High School, and his Navy service during World War II was in the Pacific.
Section 33:
Line 291: Following TS, “christmas” is corrected to “Christmas.”
Section 35:
Line 308: Nonpossessive plural “wow’s” is here corrected to “wows.”
Section 38:
Lines 340–41: St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) believed that forsaking material wealth was essential to spiritual growth.
Section 58:
Line 515: The philosopher Plotinus (205–270), author of the Enneads, studied for eleven years under a philosopher named Ammonius.
Section 59:
Line 530: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), the Transcendentalist essayist and poet.
Section 68:
Lines 604–8: The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) met the sculptor Thelma Wood in Paris in the early 1920s and had a brief relationship with her before marrying Eugen Jan Boissevain.
Section 84:
Line 752: The order to “plot a course, Mr. Sulu” alludes to the first Star Trek television series, which aired from 1966 to 1969. Mr. Sulu was the helmsman of the Starship Enterprise.