Archie Ammons was not your typical poet. He spent years as a chemical-glass salesman before he got a teaching job. He was a down to earth Southerner.
I was at a literary festival many years ago where he was the other poet. I did my best to avoid him because I felt we had litttle in common. But one morning I went into a tiny dive for breakfast. There he was sitting in a booth alone. He waved to me so I joined him.
We had a great conversation. He was warm and friendly—not the impression I had from his often austere and impersonal poetry. We talked about the stock market for an hour.
Great story. I’ve been a fan since Tape for the Turn of the Year in 1993. It had just been reassured by Norton (for any book nerds). — Why didn’t you discuss poetry?
In the two days I spent with Ammons, he never wanted to talk about poetry. (Elizabeth Bishop was the same way.) But he was a dedicated amateur investor, and he didn't seem to have anyone to discuss that at Cornell. He even wrote me later asking my opinion on particular stocks. He liked the fact that we both had a business background.
I was glad to meet him in such an unexpected but cordial and genuine way.
Ha. There should be a poet-investors club, that would be funny. Or maybe a specialist syndicate at Lloyds, that would be classy (and nicely counter-cyclical).
I think we need to cut him some slack regarding travel. Anyone who spent time in WWII shouldn’t be expected to do any more traveling. My father would never get on a plane again after the war. He had good reason.
If folks are interested in arts patronage and its troubles, I wrote a piece a few months ago discussing the modern-day selection process through which writers and other artists are selected for grants and prizes through selection committees—groups of people who must together make a selection and hence must speak (or email or write, but always communicate through words) to each other. In the piece, I ask what we lose when aesthetic judgment must be explained, when artists are selected by way of conversation. Would love to hear peoples' thoughts on this! https://lifeasfound.substack.com/p/before-words
He sounds slightly mad and irrational and having of a bizarre and really rather absurd idea of Western civilization. Which, at least to my mind, partly points to why, though his modern style is not something I appreciate very much, his Corsons Inlet has stuck with me since I read it. One doesn't want to go too far with connecting mad thinking with aesthetic success, but it does seem like going to extremes in thought and life (which ends up being at the very least similar to madness) are conducive to creating strong art.
After all, "To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour", is pretty, pretty crazy. But seeing the infinite, or God, or the sublime, in something minute probably IS valuable or even essential to aesthetic creation. I think of the many love poems which, if you take what they actually state, are saying obviously mad things -- i.e., in the degree to which the beloved is praised. Or think of the entire Dante-Beatrice 'relation'...
Anyway, this isn't the first example of accomplished artists having lunatic ideas on philosophy, art, or religion. Like what Tolstoy thought about Shakespeare or Eliot about Hamlet... Probably one of the reasons poetry seems to have been in such a mess for so long is that it has been entirely consumed by the academy. The virtues of academics are something like sober thought, balanced judgments, exacting research, etcetera... All very nice but I'm not so sure in alignment with the requirements of creating art...
One of my greatest memories from my MA at Wake Forest was taking a class on the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Louise Gluck, and A.R. Ammons. And defending my thesis in the Ammons Lounge in the English department's building.
Archie Ammons was not your typical poet. He spent years as a chemical-glass salesman before he got a teaching job. He was a down to earth Southerner.
I was at a literary festival many years ago where he was the other poet. I did my best to avoid him because I felt we had litttle in common. But one morning I went into a tiny dive for breakfast. There he was sitting in a booth alone. He waved to me so I joined him.
We had a great conversation. He was warm and friendly—not the impression I had from his often austere and impersonal poetry. We talked about the stock market for an hour.
This is excellent. Was Ammons an investor? I have been enjoying his poetry again recently.
Don’t know what he put stock in, but in his best stuff (and in his shorter short poems), he sure is economical.
Great story. I’ve been a fan since Tape for the Turn of the Year in 1993. It had just been reassured by Norton (for any book nerds). — Why didn’t you discuss poetry?
In the two days I spent with Ammons, he never wanted to talk about poetry. (Elizabeth Bishop was the same way.) But he was a dedicated amateur investor, and he didn't seem to have anyone to discuss that at Cornell. He even wrote me later asking my opinion on particular stocks. He liked the fact that we both had a business background.
I was glad to meet him in such an unexpected but cordial and genuine way.
Ha. There should be a poet-investors club, that would be funny. Or maybe a specialist syndicate at Lloyds, that would be classy (and nicely counter-cyclical).
I really admire “Tape.”
I think we need to cut him some slack regarding travel. Anyone who spent time in WWII shouldn’t be expected to do any more traveling. My father would never get on a plane again after the war. He had good reason.
In a world of travelers, I’d always choose someone who hates to travel.
What a funny interview! To get down to basics: He lost 20 pounds while visiting Italy?? Mercy! Such a hoot!
Once I heard a warning that all of the olive oil in the food in that country could disagree with people who were not used to a diet of that kind.
It’s all been downhill since Socrates!
As it happens there is a good case that Socrates is *the* defining figure of Western civilisation, so a logical place to draw a line, so to speak.
If folks are interested in arts patronage and its troubles, I wrote a piece a few months ago discussing the modern-day selection process through which writers and other artists are selected for grants and prizes through selection committees—groups of people who must together make a selection and hence must speak (or email or write, but always communicate through words) to each other. In the piece, I ask what we lose when aesthetic judgment must be explained, when artists are selected by way of conversation. Would love to hear peoples' thoughts on this! https://lifeasfound.substack.com/p/before-words
Ammons' love of the Orient wouldn't have survived exposure to Beijing bookstores displaying translations of Nixon's memoirs and he knew it
He sounds slightly mad and irrational and having of a bizarre and really rather absurd idea of Western civilization. Which, at least to my mind, partly points to why, though his modern style is not something I appreciate very much, his Corsons Inlet has stuck with me since I read it. One doesn't want to go too far with connecting mad thinking with aesthetic success, but it does seem like going to extremes in thought and life (which ends up being at the very least similar to madness) are conducive to creating strong art.
After all, "To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour", is pretty, pretty crazy. But seeing the infinite, or God, or the sublime, in something minute probably IS valuable or even essential to aesthetic creation. I think of the many love poems which, if you take what they actually state, are saying obviously mad things -- i.e., in the degree to which the beloved is praised. Or think of the entire Dante-Beatrice 'relation'...
Anyway, this isn't the first example of accomplished artists having lunatic ideas on philosophy, art, or religion. Like what Tolstoy thought about Shakespeare or Eliot about Hamlet... Probably one of the reasons poetry seems to have been in such a mess for so long is that it has been entirely consumed by the academy. The virtues of academics are something like sober thought, balanced judgments, exacting research, etcetera... All very nice but I'm not so sure in alignment with the requirements of creating art...
One of my greatest memories from my MA at Wake Forest was taking a class on the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Louise Gluck, and A.R. Ammons. And defending my thesis in the Ammons Lounge in the English department's building.
This stinks of vanity.