Glare

by A.R. Ammons

Harold Bloom, one of this country's most respected literary critics, has this to "No contemporary poet, in America, is likelier to become a classic than A. R. Ammons." With Glare, Ammons once again has proven himself a master of the long poem, the short line, and a deep and sympathetic humor in the face of life's absurdities. Ammons wants you to understand that your life, and the lives of those you love, would mean nothing to any of the sizable meteors that could crash into the earth at any time, killing us all, but he doesn't stop there. The cosmic game is stunningly vast, he writes, and, after all "it is / nice to be included, especially from / so minor a please turn, in yr / hymnals, to page 'archie carrying on / again' ..." Ammons is a great poet not content to rest on his laurels.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Archie Randolph Ammons was born outside Whiteville, North Carolina, on February 18, 1926. He started writing poetry aboard a U. S. Navy destroyer escort in the South Pacific. After completing service in World War II, he attended Wake Forest University and the University of California at Berkeley.

His honors included the Academy's Wallace Stevens Award, the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Medal, the Ruth Lilly Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He lived in Ithaca, New York, where he was Goldwin Smith Professor of Poetry at Cornell University until his retirement in 1998. Ammons died on February 25, 2001.

Reviews

[Jason Stehly · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me some time to be with this book enough.

[Ela Harrison]

Slippery masterful use both of language sounds and of transformative word associations. He uses this sometimes to intense focusing effect; other times just flippantly. The juxtaposition of an underlying humorous tone with serious or profound moments throws me often. He definitely plays with the reader; definitely presents himself as a somewhat repulsive old man, world-weary in a seen-it-all, chauvinistic kind of way... And then the mood turns again, to remind that the latter is just one persona.
I think the poem is probably longer than it needs to be--effusion can become effluvium at a certain point. But very likely, that is what he wants.

[Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to say why I like and dislike Ammons. His style inspires me, though I can't always say that his poems are successful. There's excitement in his work, yet it doesn't really stay with me. Maybe it doesn't have to.

[Gabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's about 200 pages too long. One critic described the ticker-taped couplets as mechanically produced "sausages." Ammons, then, has produced a mountain of mystery meat which I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to digest fully