'The Complete Poems' of A.R. Ammons amount to a profound experience of empathy
A.R. Ammons (1926-2001) was one of the great curmudgeons in poetry — he actually made an aesthetic out of a kind of reticent fuddy-duddiness spiked with a whole bunch of other moods and modes, from mischief to randiness. But it’s as if his willful resistance to some things makes sure there’s room...