Glare [Hardcover]

A. R. Ammons (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 1997

"Glare is a high-energy, relentlessly self-aware collision with the whole of life."—Albert Mobilio, Salon

A superb long poem by the contemporary master of the form, Glare comprises two sections, "Strip" and "Scat Scan." The poem demonstrates, yet again, why A. R. Ammons's poetic voice is a national treasure: by turns cosmic, self-inflating, self-deflating, eloquent, intimate, bawdy, comic, precise—and always unmistakably his own.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Harold Bloom, one of this country's most respected literary critics, has this to say: "No contemporary poet, in America, is likelier to become a classic than A. R. Ammons." With Glare, Ammons once again has proven himself a master of the long poem, the short line, and a deep and sympathetic humor in the face of life's absurdities. Ammons wants you to understand that your life, and the lives of those you love, would mean nothing to any of the sizable meteors that could crash into the earth at any time, killing us all, but he doesn't stop there. The cosmic game is stunningly vast, he writes, and, after all "it is / nice to be included, especially from / so minor a pew: please turn, in yr / hymnals, to page 'archie carrying on / again' ..." Ammons is a great poet not content to rest on his laurels.

From Library Journal

In his 1968 essay, "A Poem Is a Walk," Ammons described poetry as being able to incorporate "contradictions, inconsistencies, explanations." His long poems demonstrate that theory, leaving him room to be humanist, philosopher, scientist, naturalist, teacher, family man, and sexual being. Writing in his familiar couplets on another roll of adding-machine tape, he reminds readers of his last book-length poem, Garbage (1993 National Book Award winner). He wants "Strip" to be akin to litter, however, casually strewn everywhere: "I have plenty and/ give plenty away, why, because here/ at nearly 70 stuff has bunched up/ with who knows how much space to/ spread out into." Or, again: "strip typing is/ like strip mining: you peel the/ surface off things shoving clutterment/ downhill." "Scat Scan," the book's shorter poem, is harder to pin down. Again, Ammons is discursive, delighting in wordplay. He sums up his life through twisted proverbs and ingeniously echoes Frost's two most famous poems, "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." As with all of Ammons's books, this volume is essential.?Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (July 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393040968
• ISBN-13: 978-0393040968
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,609,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Squinting at brilliance, December 9, 1999

By 

Clive Allen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glare (Hardcover)

Incredibly it's really difficult to find A. R. Ammons poetry in bookshops in the UK. As far as I know his work isn't actually published here & so enthusiasts have to rely on specialist shops or on ordering his books (from internet bookstores or elsewhere). I first came across his worksevseral years ago in an anthology of American verse - & I've been hooked ever since. 'Glare' is a spectacular display of Ammon's deceptively easy-looking conversational style. Confident, funny, disarmingly direct, it touches on the wonderful & terrible business of living & growing old. The language is razor edged & playfully fuzzy - in exactly the right places & amounts. The long poem (of which 'Glare' is a very special example) has tripped-up many a gifted poet, but this has the sustained brilliance of someone competely at home with the form, someone who knows how to set poetic pace & rhythm to fit the task in hand. On a more commonplace note, it's a very engaging read. A book you can dip in & out of or settle down with. A book full of sparkiling wit, occasional glittering nuggets of wisdom, old-geezerish grumbling, rambling, ranting & poetry that will 'lift the top of your head off' as someone once said. He should be in the shops here. U.K. publishers please note.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular vistas (democratic visas), March 29, 2001

By 

"katejohns" (Azalea Garden (The Thames)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glare (Hardcover)

Ammons was a master of the concise lyric, the witty aphorism, and the unusual nature narrative: a dialogue between a man and a mountain, for example. But he shines in his long poems, his book-length poems, of which "Glare" is the final example. The poem enacts the workings of an expansive supple probing ever-restless mind as it turns over all that comes at it centripetally as if it occupied the center of the universe. In a sense he did that as well as any American poet since Robert Frost. That is one measure of his greatness. There are others in the glare of mourning.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only book-length poem I ever read straight through ..., November 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Glare (Paperback)

Archie expresses so many of your own thoughts, but much better than you'd ever dare to, even if you could. He's funny and cool, and I loved this book. Saying anything highfalutin about Ammons, I will leave to the real critics. I just love him.