Considering the Radiance: Essays on the Poetry of A. R. Ammons

by David Burak (Editor), Roger Gilbert (Editor)

This intimate collection of essays addressed to the common reader pays tribute to one of the twentieth century’s major poets. Encompassing every phase of A. R. Ammons’s oeuvre, from his beginnings in the 1950s to his late masterpieces, Garbage and Glare, this book of essays explores the personal side of a poet often still seen as forbiddingly abstract and intellectual. Included are essays by Helen Vendler, Alice Fulton, Harold Bloom, and John Ashbery, among others.

366 pages, Hardcover

First published March 30, 2005

Reviews

[Michael]

In addition to the contributions by Harold Bloom and Helen Vendler, which I expected to value, the John Ashbery, Josephine Miles, Josephine Jacobsen, David Kalstone (the first non-Bloom, non-Vendler chapter that really grabbed my attention), Daniel Mark Fogel, and Frederick Buell chapters also contained excellent analysis, either of individual poems or parts of a poem, or of Ammon's poetics and approach to his work.

A few other contributors warrant mention: the chapters from John Brehm, Kenneth McClane, and Zofia Burr differ from the others mentioned because they represent more of a personal reminiscence than an analysis (the point of the book, in large part, but far from my favorite subject to read). The way in which these three are valuable, however, is in their rich description of Ammon's influence on each writer as a writer; whether Ammons influenced each writers in his capacity as professor, boss, mentor, or friend.

In short, some very inspiring analysis, but the book was too much a collection of personal memories than anything else. I need to look elsewhere to find the analysis of Ammons' work that I'd like to read. Ammons's own poetry, of course, offers the best analysis of itself I've seen so far.

[Ben Pederson]

that Erza to Ammons is not Pound, but rather a midget he knew when he was young: a small man against the world.

[Donna Kirk]

I like to read Helen Vendler's essays and in this book she comments on Ammons....

[Jordan]

Good and enlightening essays about Ammons. You get to know him in ways different from the distinctly personal but wary persona of his poems.