The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons: Volume 2 1978-2005

951 Pages·2017·2.81 MB·English

by  A.R. Ammons

T C P A. R. A
HE OMPLETE OEMS OF MMONS
VOLUME 2
1978–2005
Edited by Robert M. West
Introduction by Helen Vendler
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C
ONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION by Helen Vendler
S -P S (1978)
IX IECE UITE
I (“led by words into a multiplicity of contact . . .”)
II (“poetry though a big sport helps one bear . . .”)
III (“so many things sound contradictory . . .”)
IV (“hope until there is no hope . . .”)
V (“the years pile up substanceless . . .”)
VI (“how snow can cling . . .”)
A C T (1981)
OAST OF REES
Coast of Trees
Swells
Continuing
In Memoriam Mae Noblitt
Weather-Bound
Where
Strolls
Getting Through
Eventually Is Soon Enough
Density
Vehicle
Response
Easter Morning
White Dwarf
Distraction
Rapids
Neighbors
Keepsake
Antithesis
Traveling Shows
Breaking Out
Range
Dry Spell Spiel
Mountain Wind
Night Finding
Fourth Dimension
Country Music
Wiring
Sunday at McDonald’s
Sweetened Change
Parting
Feel Like Traveling On
Poverty
Givings
An Improvisation for the Stately Dwelling
An Improvisation for Jerald Bullis
Persistences
W H (1982)
ORLDLY OPES
Room Conditioner
Extravaganza
Righting Wrongs
Subsumption
Immoderation
Vines
Extrication
Spruce Woods
I Went Back
Snow Roost
Shading Flight In
Precious Weak Fields
Night Chill
Calling
Reaction Rates
Progress Report
Lost & Found
Epistemology
The Role of Society in the Artist
Scribbles
Hermit Lark
Shit List
Limits
Sizing
Bride
Rainy Morning
The Scour
Meditation
Oblivion’s Bloom
Immortality
Design
Augmentations in Early March
Working Differentials
Winter Sanctuaries
Cold Spell
Hollows
Volitions
Providence
Going Without Saying
Devastation
Merchandise
Pairing
Rivulose
L E C (1983)
AKE FFECT OUNTRY
The Bright Side
Zero and Then Some
Localizing
Theories of Height
The Spiral Rag
The Fairly High Assimilation Rag
I Could Not Be Here At All
Written Water
Retiring
Nature Poetry
Holding Still
Windy Morning with a Little Sleet
Playback
Positive Edges
On Being
By the Boulder Cluster the Wind
Instancing
Trigger
Apologetics
Songlet
Is the Only Enough None
Giving Up Words with Words
Settling Up
Negative Pluses
Yadkin Picnic
Laces
The Only Way Around Is Through
Old Desire
Making Room
Exchangers
Lips Twisted with Thirst
The Eclipse Goes by Drawing
Dusk Water
Pet Panther
Singling & Doubling Together
Motioning
Love’s Motions
Helping Hand
Debris
Coming Round
Dismantlings
Down Low
We, We Ourselves
Measuring Points
Section
Buttermilk Falls
Spring Vacation
Meeting Place
S V (1987)
UMERIAN ISTAS
1: The Ridge Farm
1 (“The lean, far-reaching, hung-over sway . . .”)
2 (“last night, the wind clunked . . .”)
3 (“a poet hands me his poem and says . . .”)
4 (“if nature could speak . . .”)
5 (“knowledge, perception, this action . . .”)
6 (“there is no tedium, apparently . . .”)
7 (“some branches . . .”)
8 (“we went for a raw walk . . .”)
9 (“cauliflowers are either real or . . .”)
10 (“the clumps and small reservoirs . . .”)
11 (“rather than the play of the mind . . .”)
12 (“how to exclude the central . . .”)
13 (“I like the ridge, its rolls my fixed ocean . . .”)
14 (“I’ve had all the apples . . .”)
15 (“considering mutability and muck . . .”)
16 (“nature that roots under us . . .”)
17 (“we live again in the bellies . . .”)
18 (“I go to nature not because . . .”)
19 (“I wouldn’t give up a hair . . .”)
20 (“when the hand falls apart . . .”)
21 (“heaven can be as purified . . .”)
22 (“once you’ve caught the notion . . .”)
23 (“slice thirty degrees off the summer . . .”)
24 (“last year we got this strawberry . . .”)
25 (“the rat was a mole . . .”)
26 (“there is something about . . .”)
27 (“I like, as I have said before . . .”)
28 (“it doesn’t matter to me if issues . . .”)
29 (“I wake from a nap . . .”)
30 (“words cast up . . .”)
31 (“I was this . . .”)
32 (“today Jerry, Fran, Phyllis and I went . . .”)
33 (“I’m split but not . . .”)
34 (“don’t think we don’t . . .”)
35 (“wherever mortality sets up a net . . .”)
36 (“straitened narrow, river-wound . . .”)
37 (“everyone watches the world end once . . .”)
38 (“I don’t care if I don’t tell the truth . . .”)
39 (“in the small walks & chasms . . .”)
40 (“the honeysucklebushes already weighty . . .”)
41 (“we were talking about our MFA program . . .”)
42 (“minutiae is a fussy word . . .”)
43 (“the high farm beseeches my mind . . .”)
44 (“sweeps of space haunt the slopes . . .”)
45 (“the thought that . . .”)
46 (“culture, hardened . . .”)
47 (“peeling the bark off a crabapple . . .”)
48 (“at dusk rabbits settle . . .”)
49 (“little showers yesterday evening . . .”)
50 (“a light catches somewhere . . .”)
51 (“I like nature poetry . . .”)
2: Tombstones
1 (“the chisel, chipping . . .”)
2 (“it breaks the heart . . .”)
3 (“the ground flat . . .”)
4 (“set on the line . . .”)
5 (“the spirit, though . . .”)
6 (“but why put a stone there . . .”)
7 (“rivulets of scattering . . .”)
8 (“dust’s shape in air . . .”)
9 (“the stone-name signifies . . .”)
10 (“as if the name . . .”)
11 (“the grooves fill with moss . . .”)
12 (“a mockingbird sings . . .”)
13 (“the wind roars, sweeps, whirls . . .”)
14 (“a stone sinks in soil . . .”)
15 (“when gliding perhaps under a glacier . . .”)
16 (“stones, names in them . . .”)
17 (“what does it matter . . .”)