A.R. Ammons

A.R. Ammons was a gifted and prolific poet who published dozens of books in his lifetime and twice won the National Book Award. He was born in rural North Carolina and raised on a cotton and tobacco farm during the Great Depression, which inspired a great deal of his work. His tendency to write about nature, the soul, and the human condition often prompts comparisons to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Ammons was also an abundant painter. A.R. Ammons: Watercolors focuses on Ammons’s abstract watercolors painted during 1977–1979, a time of intense productivity. The abstraction of these watercolors echo those found in Ammons’s poems and offer an expanded understanding of his art.

Read “The Clenched Jaw School.” Who or what is composing the poem with Ammons? What other forms of art appear in this poem? What might it mean, as Ammons writes in his poem, “Poetics,” to “look for the forms things want to come as”? Why might this be important for an artist or poet?

Read “Epiphany.” What does he mean by “there is safety in the visible”? With his work, Ammons attempted to express the inexpressible. What does this mean? How can you connect this with his watercolor works?

Observation Activity
Take 15 minutes to silently study one Ammons watercolor work. Write down everything you observe and can describe about its appearance (at least 10 details). Then write down everything you observe and can describe about what the painting might be trying to express or the story it is telling, including how it makes you feel. Try to write until you run out of possible interpretations or fill up the page.

Prompt
Write the poem the painting you’ve observed is trying to express. What might it be trying to tell us about expression itself? You may wish to begin with “I look for…”