Writer poet Nature American Poetry I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry. - A. R. Ammons
Thoughts Time Even if you walk exactly the same route each time - as with a sonnet - the events along the route cannot be imagined to be the same from day to day, as the poet's health, sight, his anticipations, moods, fears, thoughts cannot be the same. - A. R. Ammons
Stars Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone. - A. R. Ammons
Laws Each poem in becoming generates the laws by which it is generated: extensions of the laws to other poems never completely take. - A. R. Ammons
Laws May A poem generated by its own laws may be unrealized and bad in terms of so-called objective principles of taste, judgement, deduction. - A. R. Ammons
Purpose Past Man I can't tell you where a poem comes from, what it is, or what it is for: nor can any other man. The reason I can't tell you is that the purpose of a poem is to go past telling, to be recognised by burning. - A. R. Ammons
Poetry Years Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without. - A. R. Ammons
And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died. - Julien Benda
Bereavement is the sharpest challenge to our trust in God; if faith can overcome this, there is no mountain which it cannot remove. - Dean Inge