Still,The American poet Archie Randolph Ammons was one of those writers that defies categorisation. He wrote in an unusual style, sometimes without any punctuation. In fact one of his poems, the book-length Garbage, appears to be just one, elongated sentence which has been divided into sections and couplets
Still by A . R. Ammons
I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I’ll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything ismagnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got upand ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!
