Briefings

by A.R. Ammons

Bloom continues, "There are other American poets since Stevens who have composed a handful of memorable poems, but only Ammons has begun to show us a whole poetic world. More than his contemporaries, he has perfected a voice that, to cite Emerson, is 'ready to render an image of every created thing.'"



David Kalstone says, "The poems are, by and large, tough or wry meditations, striking out into strange landscapes, dreams or nightmares, which are seen with entire clarity, no blurring, as if this were the only way the mind could be unwound on the page. The book forms a journal of mental states, each poem finding a form and a scene for a very exact mental encounter of discovery. . . . 'Small and Easy' is the way everything is finally made to seem, like the rarest dancing, in which briefly and freshly the dancer shows us what space is like by showing how much he can possess."

Genres: Poetry

105 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

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

[Atri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I look for the forms
things want to come as
...
how a thing will
unfold:
not the shape on paper - though
that, too - but the
uninterfering means on paper:
not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.

***

to keep the
life and
shape, to keep
the sphere, I hide
contours,
progressions between

turning lines,
towards the higher
reason
that contains the war
of shape and loss
at rest.

***

What small grace comes must
count hard

and then
belong to the poem that is in need

not to my own redemption
except
as the mirror gives back the dream...

***

contemplation is still where the
ideas of permanence
and transience fuse in a single body,
ice, for example,
or a leaf: green pushes white up the
slope: a maple
leaf gets the wobbles in a light wind
and comes loose

half-ready: where what has always
happened and what
has never happened before seem for
an instant reconciled...

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection, but still prefer his other "short" collection entitled "The Very Short Poems of A.R. Ammons." I would not say that these poems are easy; rather, they are difficult poems in small doses. The small dose can ease the difficulty and allow one to grasp a poem better, in my opinion. As a way into Ammons, whose long poems are not favorites of mine, this book is perhaps the best available in Nook or Kindle format. The way to read this book is ten poems at a time and then a few days rest.

[Bec Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hippie poems published in 1971

[Sameen Shakya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Briefings: Poems Small and Easy by A. R. Ammons is a collection of small and easy poems by the poet A.R. Ammons.

Man, this book was a joy to read. The poems were, as the title suggests, small and easy. Though digestible, these poems packed a lotta punch.

BUT

The reason why I wanna sing these poems' laurels is because Ammons' writing is so unique. During a time-period, the mid 20th century, when everyone was trying to be unique and ending up being lackluster, Ammons' writing was so singularly his.

I love how he used the colon (:).

Actually, yeah. That's it. The way he used the (:) is amazing. To me, that's groundbreaking.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the style of something small and matter of fact, and judging from the weather, something cold and sort of a put-out.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 A521b 1971