Quote

If a poem is each time new, then it is necessarily an act of discovery, a chance taken, a chance that may lead to fulfillment or disaster

A. R. Ammons

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

A. R. Ammons
Age: 75 †
Born: 1926
Born: February 18
Died: 2001
Died: February 26
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Whiteville
North Carolina
A.R. Ammons
A R Ammons
AR Ammons
Lead
Taken
Chance
May
Fulfillment
Time
Poem
Disaster
Necessarily
Discovery

More quotes by A. R. Ammons

Image
Attend to mushrooms and all other things will answer up.
A. R. Ammons
Image
It's not a love of poetry readings that attracts those who do come to them but theater.
A. R. Ammons
Image
If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'
A. R. Ammons
Image
The walk liberating, I was released from forms, from the perpendiculars, straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds of thought into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends of sight.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without
A. R. Ammons
Image
Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Only silence perfects silence.
A. R. Ammons
Image
One can't have it both ways and both ways is the only way I want it.
A. R. Ammons
Image
What destruction have I been blessed by?
A. R. Ammons
Image
I have a life that did not become, that turned aside and stopped, astonished
A. R. Ammons
Image
I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries, shutting out and shutting in, separating inside from outside: I have drawn no lines
A. R. Ammons
Image
The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance.
A. R. Ammons
Image
I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Thats a wonderful change thats taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Where but in the very asshole of comedown is redemption: as where but brought low, where but in the grief of failure, loss, error do we discern the savage afflictions that turn us around: where but in the arrangements love crawls us through
A. R. Ammons
Image
Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition
A. R. Ammons
Image
The white sun like a moth on a string circles the southpole.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same.
A. R. Ammons
Image
Things go away to return, brightened for the passage
A. R. Ammons
Image
Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values
A. R. Ammons