Consider the Radiance

Among A. R. Ammons' most devout readers-and lifelong friends-was critic Harold Bloom, who declared Ammons' Collected Poems "the most distinguished book of American verse since the publication of Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems in 1955." This new compendium of work by a major American poet, selected and with an introduction by one of the most prominent literary critics of our time, is therefore of special interest. Ammons' work engages with a rich lineage from Emerson and Thoreau to Whitman to Pound, Frost, and Williams. Bloom last worked on this book in March 2019, about seven months before his death; his list included the entire or partial texts of 150 poems, including Garbage, winner of the National Book Award and Tape for the Turn of the Year, written on a roll of adding-machine tape. Edited for publication by Ammons scholar and fellow poet Robert M. West, When You Consider the Radiance illuminates the achievement of one of poetry's great voices.