OLD GEEZER
The quickest
way
to change
the
world is
to
like it
the
way it
is.
Archie Randolph Ammons grew up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. Before he turned 40, he was on the English department faculty (this biology major) at Cornell University where he would later hold down the fort with fellow North Carolinian Robert Morgan. Years before Cornell, Ammons served in WW2, and later taught and was the principal of Hattaras Elementary School. It's been said that he had a school in Miami named after him. If this true, he is one of the few contemporary American poets, I believe, who holds such a distinction. Ammons was born in February 1926 and died the same month in 2001. His many books of poetry show a verve between the very long and very short poem. Emerson would have probably enjoyed his company.
