Ark: The foundations 1-33

by Ronald Johnson

This long, complex poem, modeled on the Watts Tower, a Los Angeles folk architecture masterpiece, is the first Living Batch Press "drive, he said" booka series honoring Robert Creeley's "I Know a Man." The title alludes to Noah's ark; to the rainbow ("arc-en-ciel" in French); and by extension to Arkansas and hence to Kansas, where the poet was born. "A work of singular beauty and resolution. It takes its legitimate place with the great works of the century of like kind, Ezra Pound's "Cantos," Louis Zukofsky's "A," Charles Olson's "Maximus," and Robert Duncan's "Passages." Its own specific character is, however, brilliantly singular."Robert Creeley "A late harvest of seeds sown by Blake, L. Frank Baum, the Bible, and Zukofsky, all in a new architecture, a wholly new voice, and even a new chemistry of words and images. It is for those who can see visions, and for those who know how to look well and be taught that they can see them.

Genres: Poetry

90 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1980

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ronald Johnson, who died in 1998, is little known outside the circle of assiduous students of avant-garde poetry, and for good reason. A West Coast recluse and peripatetic visionary, Johnson's major accomplishment was the epic poem ARK, most of which was either published in limited small-press runs or is out of print. ARK is thus a kind of holy grail of lost American weirdness; the edition I just finished reading is a softcover release from now-defunct North Point Press, dating from 1981. This intriguing backstory I took as an invitation to enter a poetic world of deep, strange, nearly incomprehensible verse that yet moves on a bizarre inner logic all its own. If you can imagine the Old Testament crossed with abstracts of theoretical physics and then narrated by William Blake at his loopiest, then you're approaching what reading ARK is like. It is probably needless to say that I'm hooked, and have ordered, at exorbitant expense, a used copy of the 1984 Dutton hardcover of the next 16 books (or "beams" in Johnson's quasibiblical nomenclature) of this strange, subterranean odyssey. What this all means, if anything, is anyone's guess.

[Nicolas ChampRoux · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book of poetry with a bit of apprehension, since I typically struggle with verse, particularly English, but I gave it a go as I was getting ready to attempt hiking the PCT. The book had been introduced as a good primer for nature, so I took it as such, without conducting any preliminary research about its author or the overall program underlying the writing. I am still not too sure I got it, to be honest, but I am still delighted with the overall content.

First off, it pushes languages to the furthest it can go, creating a universe that could not be summoned in any other medium. It is dense and playful, full of colorful alliterations and clever word plays, inserting images and even commandeering typography to raise the volume here and evoke a gaping mouth these. It cuts, copies and pastes to extract words hiding into others; it diverts and subverts punctuation; it hijacks etymology, parrots definition, and parodies scientific discourse. If you let it, a paragraph can resonate and echo for a day, implying without ever fully disclosing, dancing along ambiguity fringes.

I am told that this is only the tip of the iceberg, that Ronald Johnson wrote an entire set of these delirious deliberations, and I think I might carry on, even though I am not sure I am giving the kind of attention and focus it deserves and commands. I am impressed!

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could die by poetry this is how I want to go--