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 More Quotes by A. R. Ammons More Quotes From A. R. Ammons Only silence perfects silence. A. R. Ammons silence Everything is discursive opinion instead of direct experience. A. R. Ammons direct experience opinion Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone. A. R. Ammons hundred four stars Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. Having once experienced the mystery, plenitude, contradiction, and composure of a work of art, we afterward have a built-in resistance to the slogans and propaganda of oversimplification that have often contributed to the destruction of human life. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization. A. R. Ammons self mean art You have your identity when you find out, not what you can keep your mind ON, but what you can't keep your mind OFF. A. R. Ammons wisdom mind life For though we often need to be restored to the small, concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to be reminded of the large, vague, unlimited, unknown A. R. Ammons certain unlimited needs Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful. A. R. Ammons wonderful Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. A. R. Ammons source return self In nature there are few sharp lines A. R. Ammons lines Things go away to return, brightened for the passage A. R. Ammons going-away return travel The white sun like a moth on a string circles the southpole. A. R. Ammons circles white sun One can't have it both ways and both ways is the only way I want it. A. R. Ammons want way I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries, A. R. Ammons lines acceptance boundaries Though I have looked everywhere / I can find nothing lowly / in the universe. A. R. Ammons universe i-can What destruction have I been blessed by? A. R. Ammons destruction blessed 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 judgement objectivity law If the greatest god is the stillness all the motions add up to, then we must ineluctably be included. A. R. Ammons stillness ifs add 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 imagine hundred years Thats a wonderful change thats taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends. A. R. Ammons taken wonderful today I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change. A. R. Ammons stress successful order
