Collected Poems, 1951-1971 Quotes

“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.”
― A.R. Ammons, Collected Poems, 1951-1971

“I allow myself eddies of meaning:
yield to a direction of significance
running
like a stream through the geography of my work:
you can find
in my sayings
swerves of action
like the inlet’s cutting edge:
there are dunes of motion,
organizations of grass, white sandy paths
or remembrance
in the overall wandering of mirroring mind:

but Overall is beyond me

— A.R. Ammons, from “Corsons Inlet,” Collected Poems: 1951-1971 (W. W. Norton & Co., 1972)”
― A.R. Ammons, Collected Poems, 1951-1971

“when you consider

that air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen,
each is accepted into as much light as it will take, then
the heart moves roomier”
― A.R. Ammons, Collected Poems, 1951-1971