Archie Randolph Ammons

• Name — A. R. Ammons • Born — 18 February 1926 • Birthplace — near Whiteville, North Carolina • Died — 25 February 2001 • Place of death — Ithaca, New York • Occupation — * Poet • columnist • essayist • Education — Wake Forest University University of California, Berkeley

Literary critics have associated Ammons with earlier poets of the American romantic tradition, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. In line with these romantic roots, Ammons's poetry explores the individual soul through its connection to quotidian life and the natural world. Nevertheless, Ammons exhibits several qualities that distinguish him from his peers and predecessors. With a deep knowledge of natural phenomena, Ammons is noted for wielding a wide lexicon of scientific terms. He is also regarded for his witty—and sometimes coarse—humor, which balances out the gravity of his transcendentalist themes.

Ammons grew up on a tobacco farm near Whiteville, North Carolina, in the southeastern part of the state. He served as a sonar operator in the U.S. Navy during World War II, stationed on board the Gunason, a destroyer escort. After the war, Ammons attended Wake Forest University, majoring in biology. Graduating in 1949, he served as a principal and teacher at Hattaras Elementary School later that year and also married Phyllis Plumbo. He received an M.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1964, Ammons joined the faculty of Cornell University, eventually becoming Goldwin Smith Professor of English and Poet in Residence. He retired from Cornell in 1998. His students who went on to achieve acclaim as poets include Alice Fulton, Ann Loomis Silsbee, and Jerald Bullis. Ammons had been a longtime resident of the South Jersey communities of Northfield, Ocean City and Millville, when he wrote Corsons Inlet in 1962.

When Ammons arrived at Cornell University in 1964 to teach creative writing, he had not yet finished his master's degree at the University of California, Berkeley. While somewhat self-conscious about his lack of academic pedigree compared to his colleagues, Ammons established himself quickly by completing and publishing six well-received volumes and earning tenure in 1969. Ammons met literary critic Harold Bloom, who visited Cornell in 1968 as a fellow of the Society for the Humanities. Bloom is often credited with elevating Ammons's reputation in his early career, and the two maintained a lifelong relationship, frequently corresponding on both personal and literary subjects. Ammons also developed a close relationship with poet Robert Morgan, who joined the Cornell English Department 1971 and remained there alongside Ammons for nearly three decades. Both from North Carolina, Ammons and Morgan bonded over their similar upbringings; and though they embraced distinct poetic styles, the two poets praised each other's work throughout their careers. In step with his thematic focus on nature, Ammons drew inspiration for his work from the surrounding landscape of Ithaca, New York. His poems "Cascadilla Falls" and "Triphammer Bridge" pay tribute to outdoor landmarks in the area.

Ammons commonly writes in two- or three-line stanzas, in which lines are unrhymed and strongly enjambed. Some of Ammons's poems are as short as one to two lines. Others, like Ammons's book-length poems Sphere, Tape for the Turn of the Year, and Garbage, are hundreds of lines long. Ammons is noted for his idiosyncratic, minimalist approach to punctuation. The colon is Ammons "signature" punctuation mark, which he employs in many contexts to divide clauses while delaying a definitive end. Ammons avoids ending poems with periods. Some of his poems end in ellipses, or in no punctuation at all.

• Ommateum, with Doxology. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1955. Reprinted, with Preface by Roger Gilbert, Cornell University, by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York & London, 2006. (paperback) • Expressions of Sea Level. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1964. • Corsons Inlet. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1965. Reprinted by Norton, 1967. • Tape for the Turn of the Year. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1965. Reprinted by Norton, 1972. • Northfield Poems. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1966. • Selected Poems. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1968. • Uplands. New York: Norton, 1970. • Briefings: Poems Small and Easy. New York: Norton, 1971. • Collected Poems, 1951-1971. New York: Norton, 1972. – winner of the National Book Award • Sphere: The Form of a Motion. New York: Norton, 1974. —winner of the Bollingen Prize for Poetry • Diversifications. New York: Norton, 1975. • The Selected Poems: 1951–1977. New York: Norton, 1977. • Highgate Road. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1977. • The Snow Poems. New York: Norton, 1977. • Selected Longer Poems. New York: Norton, 1980. • A Coast of Trees. New York: Norton, 1981. – winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award • Worldly Hopes. New York: Norton, 1982. • Lake Effect Country. New York: Norton, 1983. • The Selected Poems: Expanded Edition. New York: Norton, 1986. • Sumerian Vistas. New York: Norton, 1987. • The Really Short Poems. New York: Norton, 1991. • Garbage. New York: Norton, 1993. – winner of the National Book Award • The North Carolina Poems. Alex Albright, ed. Rocky Mount, NC: NC Wesleyan College P, 1994. • Brink Road.New York: Norton, 1996. • Glare. New York: Norton, 1997. • Bosh and Flapdoodle: Poems. New York: Norton, 2005. • Selected Poems. David Lehman, ed. New York: Library of America, 2006. • The North Carolina Poems. New, expanded edition. Frankfort, KY: Broadstone Books, 2010. • The Mule Poems. Fountain, NC: R. A. Fountain, 2010. (chapbook) • The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons, Volume 1 1955–1977; Volume 2 1978–2005: Edited by Robert M. West; Introduction by Helen Vendler. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2017 hardcover vol. 1; hardcover vol. 2

* • An Image for Longing: Selected Letters and Journals of A.R. Ammons, 1951–1974. Ed. Kevin McGuirk. Victoria, BC: ELS Editions, 2014.

* • Diacritics 3 (1973). An entire "essays on Ammons" issue. * * * • Review of A.R. Ammons, The Complete Poems.

Archie Randolph Ammons is recorded as having received Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellows Program and Bollingen Prize. Recognition and collections. Ammons received Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellows Program, Bollingen Prize, National Book Award, National Book Award for Poetry and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.