Words Awake 2!

Optional break-out breakfast session "The Legacy of Archie Ammons": informal talks, readings, remembrances by students, faculty, staff, and others affected by Ammons' work and including his year as Writer In Residence, WFU, 1974-75.

Students, faculty, and alumni are invited to this informal Archie Ammons celebration—people who knew Archie when he came to Wake while on sabbatical from Cornell (1974-75), students who were in his poetry workshops, folks who would like to get to know his work better. Let’s sit in a circle and share Archie’s poems—bring your favorite short poem, one per person, please; our poems, inspired by his work; or anecdotal remembrance of his time among us. Do you remember the Wednesday afternoon reading where he announced that he had discovered a “found poem,” while driving over the hill from Reynolda Road to campus? Or the gray autumn day he looked out a classroom window and told us how to “make it new”? Or the difference between a poet and a “flash in the pan”? Let’s go around the circle until we run out of things to say, or discover that we need to find a way to keep the conversation going.