[This text is machine generated and may contain errors.]

Speaker 1 [0:00]
The preceding interview with some modification and some reduction by Oscar Brand was broadcast nationally on March 9, 1975 as follows.

Speaker 1 [0:42]
Once again this is Oscar Brand, bringing you Voices in the Wind and among them Bollingen Prize poet, AR Ammons, bringing you a glimpse of the Clarion confusion, a poetic expression.

A.R. Ammons [0:58]
The poet may or may not be a person who has a mastery of the knowledge of the tradition. He is simply a person who knows how to perform the activity. Do you realize that we've been worrying now for 2500 years, about what the about the nature of a poem? What it is, and nobody knows yet.

Steve Marlowe [1:21]
Until 10 years ago, AR Ammons was an executive involved with the manufacture of glass equipment of a thriving New Jersey company. Many of our finest poets were successful businessmen, doctors, and lawyers. One might say American poets are in need of independent incomes. But AR Ammons who's just won the prestigious Bollingen Award for poetry for his recent collections "Sphere: The Form of Emotion" published by Norton, turned away from manufacturing, in order to have more time for his daydreams, as that's what he calls his poetry. The poem sort of sticks up a tiny bit of itself into your attention. Then you begin with that, and you dream the poem out. Here's an example. I said, Mr. Schaefer, did you get up to see the comet? And he said, let it go by I don't care. He has leaves to rake and a plunger on his washing machine isn't working right. He's not amused by 10 million mile tails or any million mile an hour universal swish, or frozen gases lit by disturbances across our solar arcs. Mr. Ammons took up academic life as Resident Poet at Cornell, and just recently took up residence at his alma mater, Wake Forest at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There our reporter Steve Marlowe found him still trying to explain that poetic impulse that has defied explanation for 2500 years.

A.R. Ammons [3:01]
Now, as for inspiration, that is not a spooky thing, you know, inspiration, I think is merely a matter of the attention, suddenly, your attention is seized by something, either that you've seen outside or some idea or image that occurs in the mind, and is interesting, for whatever reason, you may not be able to tell at that moment. But your attention is seized and concentrated by that and you simply through your interest in it, begin to work with it. And it quite often shows you something new. Each of us has his own. Well, what Emerson calls genius, meaning his own nature, his own being. And each of us consequently has different needs. That genius has different needs. So we take day to day, the things that interest us most from life.

Steve Marlowe [4:01]
You've been everything from a graduate of Wake Forest to an executive with a New Jersey glass manufacturer and other various and sundry things, a teacher, how did these various experiences work their way into your poetry? Do you ever find yourself writing about things that you've done?

A.R. Ammons [4:26]
Not as self consciously. Some reviewers have created for themselves the image of me as a person out walking along the shore or in paths in the woods looking for things in nature to write about. I never looked for anything to write about is not at all necessary to write for any to look for anything to write about. I live in the world as other people do, you know, fulfill my obligations to the best of my ability that certain times, the imagination becomes engaged with some particular aspect of being alive in the world, and at that time one writes a poem, it seems quite as natural as doing anything else getting the urge suddenly to play golf or to go run a mile. Whatever other activity appeals to you, I regard poetry mainly as an activity more nearly than a knowledge. That is to say, the physical, emotional, mental self achieves a kind of coordination at some strong moments in one's life that resembles the shape that an athlete is in, for example. And at that point of maximum coordination, you're able to perform your activity at your maximum ability. You see, at that point you're ready to write a poem. At that point, the swimmer is ready to swim. The tight rope or tight tight wire walker is ready to walk the tight wire. The the batter in a baseball game finds himself amazingly able to hit the ball, where for some reason yesterday, while he knew everything yesterday that he knows knows today, he couldn't touch it. He missed it. That particular difficult, fine area, when things seem to go by themselves. When you can't miss the ball, it seems some days, you know? Well, that's I think is is what the poet waits for, and prepares for. He tries to keep himself in shape every day, by thinking what his art is and what he can do about it.

Steve Marlowe [7:06]
Do you ever find yourself longing to give up the energy and go back to being an executive and working in business world?

A.R. Ammons [7:14]
Yes I do. Because there are long periods when the energy doesn't appear. And there's a responsibility for the use of the energy that to do it well or not. So it's it has its difficult side,

Steve Marlowe [7:35]
What keeps you from giving up?

A.R. Ammons [7:39]
The reappearance of the energy I guess, overrides your decisions. For example, I would like to think in a way the to stop writing now. Because it seems to me that I may have done the best I can, how nice then it would be to turn aside to some other new way of life, that would be where I could be a beginner and start over. But of course, that decision is overridden by the appearance of another poem. Some of my students, for example, write a good poem today, or have written one in the last week, and then they feel for some time intimidated by that poem that they they already think that they may never rise to that level, again, is a very common feeling. I think of the person very skilled is the one who's going to have the feeling. Because you see, when you understand how subtle and rare the coordinations are, that make it possible for you to do something that you never really imagined yourself capable of doing. Then you are in danger of the disappearance of that kind of coordination. You see what I mean? And you in particular, would be aware that it might be gone forever. Now I've I've read that Robert Frost, for example, after each single poem, suffered rather terribly, thinking that was his last. This worry is not something that comes after 30 years of writing. But it's something that poets live with, I think more or less constantly.

Steve Marlowe [9:26]
The anguish of the poet, the fear of falling from a state of creative grace, as expressed by Bollingen Prize winner AR Ammons at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, courtesy of reporter Steve Marlowe.

A.R. Ammons [9:54]
Supposing you did have a high wire set up and you had a man there who was a specialist in high wire. He knew exactly the material that we're using the high wire in the 18th century, he knew how much pressure was put on the wire in the 17th century. He knew the classic figures that were performed on the high wire and the 16th century, but he cannot walk the high wire. Now, supposing a man who has none of that knowledge comes out of the woods. But he's been walking rods for a long time crossing swamps and so on. And he comes out and this man says, Why don't you walk the high wire? He immediately climbs up and begins to walk with his own style, rude in some way, that uninformed in others, but he's able to do it. That is the poet. The poet may or may not be a person who is in charge of all who has a mastery of the knowledge to do. He's simply a person who knows how to perform the activity. Do you realize that we've been worrying now for 2500 years? About what about the nature of poems? What it is, and nobody knows yet.

Steve Marlowe [11:15]
If after 2500 years, the real nature of a poem cannot be defined, then maybe it doesn't really matter. At any rate, when you read the poetry of this man, Mr. AR Ammons, abstract theories and definitions of poetic constructions are replaced by a clear natural flow of human experience. Mr. Ammons is a poet of major stature, just recently joining the ranks of Wallace Stevens, Archibald MacLeish, incoming Robert Frost, and Robertson Warren as a recipient of the prestigious Bollingen Prize in poetry of Yale University Library. AR Ammons comes to us after graduating from Wake Forest College, after working as a glass manufacturing executive, and now holding full professorship at Cornell University. He is now on leave for one year to teach at his alma mater, Wake Forest University. And I talked with him recently about himself and his poetry. I asked him first about creative experience. In your poetry, how do you get inspiration? Poets have talked about the divine inspiration that comes before we feel during the writing of that poem, whether or not it's going to be a good poem, or maybe [inaudible]?

A.R. Ammons [12:42]
No, I don't think so I think we write the form, because of a willingness to accept whatever is there and then move with it. You don't want to know where the poem is going necessarily. You want to be willing to move with it to see what can be discovered, or found that consequently, as the poem realizes itself, you the writer can be surprised by the way it turns out, as the reader may be reading. Now, as for inspiration, that is not a sure thing, you know, inspiration, I think is merely a matter of the attention, suddenly, your attention is seized by something either if you've seen outside or some idea or image that occurs in the mind. And it's interesting, for whatever reason, you may not be able to tell at that moment, but your attention as see in concentrated by reading you simply through your interest, and it began to work with it. And it quite often shows you something new. Each of us has his own worldwide image [inaudible] meaning his own maker, his own being. He consequently has different needs, that reader has different needs. So we take day to day, the things that interests us most from life.

Steve Marlowe [14:13]
He's been everything from a graduate of Wake Forest to an executive of a New Jersey glass manufacturer and other various and sundry things, like teacher. How did these experiences affect what you write?

A.R. Ammons [14:30]
Well totally, probably.

Steve Marlowe [14:32]
How do these various experiences work their way into your poetry? Do you ever find yourself writing about things that you've done?

A.R. Ammons [14:44]
Not self consciously, or some reviewers have created for themselves the image of me as a person out walking along the shore or in paths in the woods looking for things and made Who to write about. I never looked for anything to write about. It's not at all necessary rights, to look for anything to write about. I live in the world as other people do, you know, fulfill my obligation to the best of my ability, that in time the imagination becomes engaged with some particular aspects of being alive in the world. And at that time, one writes a poem and seems quite as natural as doing anything else getting the urge suddenly, to play golf or to go run a mile or whatever other activity appeals. I regard poetry mainly as an activity more nearly than a [inaudible]. That is to say the physical, emotional mental cell that sees a kind of coordination at some moment in one's life that resembles the state that an athlete is in, for example. And at that point of maximum coordination, you're able to perform your activity at your maximum ability. You see, at that point, you're ready to write a poem. At that point, the swimmer is ready to swim. The tight rope tight tight wire walker is ready to walk the tight wire the batter in a baseball game finding himself amazingly able to hit the ball, where for some reason yesterday, while he knew everything yesterday, today, he couldn't talk. He missed that particular difficult, fine area, when things Things seem to go by themselves. When you can't miss the ball. Someday, you know? Well, that I think is is what the poet wait for, and prepared for. Because he tries to keep himself in shape every day, by thinking what his art is and what he can do about it.

Steve Marlowe [17:26]
Who influenced the most, as far as poets and writers and literary figures have been considered?

A.R. Ammons [17:33]
Well, if I can believe the reviewers have been influenced by everybody, I don't think they've left out a single name, my earliest awakening to poetry. I would say what had to say was governed by Robert Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Emily Dickinson.

Steve Marlowe [17:57]
Do you ever find yourself longing to give up the energy go back to being an executive and working in the business world?

A.R. Ammons [18:05]
Yes, I do. Because there are long periods when the energy doesn't appear. And there is a responsibility for the use of the energy, if you do it well or not. So it, it has a difficult side.

Steve Marlowe [18:27]
What keeps you from giving up?

A.R. Ammons [18:31]
The reappearance of the energy I guess, overrides your decisions. For example, I would like to think in a way the to stop writing now. Because it seems to me that I may have done the best I can, how nice then it would be to turn aside to some other new way of life, that would be where I could be a beginner and start over. But of course, that decision is overridden by the appearance of another poem. Some of my students, for example, write a good poem today, or have written one in the last week, and then they feel for some time intimidated by that poem that they they already think that they may never rise to that level, again, is a very common feeling. I think of the person very skilled is the one who's going to have the feeling. Because you see, when you understand how subtle and rare the coordinations are, that make it possible for you to do something that you never really imagined yourself capable of doing. Then you are in danger of the disappearance of that kind of coordination. You see what I mean? And you in particular, would be aware that it might be gone forever. Now I've I've read that Robert Frost, for example, after each single poem, suffered rather terribly, thinking that was his last. This worry is not something that comes after 30 years of writing. But it's something that poets live with, I think more or less constantly.

Steve Marlowe [20:21]
Do you have a particular message in mind?

A.R. Ammons [20:24]
No, certainly not. I normally have, I think of the poem as a sort of day dream that the mind has already dreamed. But it's below the level of the conscious mind. The poem sort of takes up a tiny bit of itself into your attention, then you begin with that, and dream the poem out. So it's an activity, it's a narration. It's a telling of events, and then what those what that event stands for, the meaning, is likely to be largely the same for all people, but certainly open to individual [inaudible] formulations in the sense of state or logical discourse about what you would bad right wrong in the world, because I don't know any better than anyone else. I said Mr. Schaefer, did you get up to see the comets? And he said, let it go by I don't care. He has leaves to rake and a plunger on his washing machine isn't working right. He's not amused by 10 million mile tails or any million mile an hour universal swish, or frozen gases lit by disturbances across our solar arcs. I have the greatest admiration for example, for the flawless waiter or waitress? You know, whatever they do, they do it well. And you and if they do it, well, you can see everything that you can see in a poem, you can see great economy of motion, accuracy of impulse. All these things, you know, that are just done with apparently effortless. But obviously, after many tries poetry is no different as an action from serving a table properly, or knowing how to sweep off doors or how to hit a ball or how to run a mile. You see, that's what makes a poem, it's something one does.

Speaker 1 23:01
After Dr. Mackie died, Mrs. Mackie has continued to live in Wake Forest. And she has continued to be a constructively active service in the life of the community and of the seminary. She has extended the realm of her usefulness to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees of Wake Forest University. In a world of specialization, and in the mad scramble for money. I am one of the many people who thank God for George Mackie and his unselfish service to so many people. And I am happy that his wife continues to be in her own way. That kind of blessing that would win his complete approval and make him very happy.