"Oracular, almost biblical at times, and as deeply embedded in the particulars of nature as the superb later poetry."—John Ashbery

This reissue of A. R. Ammons's debut, published five decades ago in a rare edition, with its penetrating "Whitmanian chants . . . holds in it the mystery of his gradual development into a major American poet, who will be read by the most discerning until the last syllable of recorded time" (Harold Bloom).