:: A. R. Ammons (1926–2001) was born on a farm in Whiteville, N.C, coming of age during the Depression. He began writing verse while serving on a Navy destroyer during World War II. After serving in the Navy, he attended Wake Forest College on the G.I. Bill, recevied a bachelor's degree in science in 1949 and then studied literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked as a school principal, a real-estate salesman, an editor, and an executive with his father-in-law's New Jersey glass company, before becoming a professor of English at Cornell in 1964. He has been awarded most of the major prizes for poetry in the United States, including two National Book Awards, the National Book Critics Circle Award, a MacArthur "genius award," and the Tanning Prize for "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry." [see here for a longer profile]