The Really Short Poems of A. R. Ammons Book

Many of these are solid work. Some of the light verse pieces might make you blench. He had a salty sense of humor. Sometimes he can fit that in and make it work. Sometimes it crashes the "poem" and it sounds like something to make codgers laugh at an American Legion bar. Whether he connects has nothing to do with his subject matter. He might write an interesting poem about a squirrel dippily hopping through his backyard, or one about the wind blowing through the tops of the trees, and then pen a totally boring poem about a truly interesting scientific concept that was just breaching in the world. The poems are just hit-and-miss like that throughout this collection.

Sometimes he seems too wordy (even in a collection of short poems) or the words seem too heavy for the poem but it still ends up interesting. Take...

RAINY MORNING

Sometimes the ridge across
the way transluminous
emerges above the mist
and squares and detached rondures
of vapory ground with
dairy barns and old trees
break out afloat
separated in high lyings


Sound. Excuses. So. Much.

You. Darn. Poem. Creatures.

Sound says to sound.

(This is a sound check.)