Theres Wallace Stevens "The Comedian as the Letter ∜" theres "Briggflatts" by Basil Bunting.
"Say, fellahs, what is an epic?" But you know there are other things. Those are the big examples and ARK is going to come join them.
RJ: Well, you know, there are some other poems in there which nobody takes advantage of. POL: Right, " A" is finished, so " A," ARK, and Clarel, and maybe HDs "War Trilogy." POL: ≫ut still with those two yours would be the only three finished long poems RJ: I tried to read it once and I just couldnt, I couldnt keep up with it POL: I guess with " A" and then maybe Melvilles Clarel I think Louis maybe had gotten it all there, if you can ever figure out whats there. Well, weve got Olson and Zukofsky Pound and whatever and William Carlos Williamsand of course then he decided that he had to do another piece and it set if off kilterand Pound bogged down before he got there because he misread Chinese. So that when I got to doing "The Spires," I could just do Spires and think "what is a Spire?" And then when I got to "The Ramparts," which was really influenced by The Watts Towersthe outside of the Watts Towers which are mosaic arches: each one of those three lines is meant to be an arch, so that each one of those does a number of arches so that its really like a building as the arches go around: So I was just lucky. But I was lucky to envision a form that left me three different periods. I didnt have "The Ramparts" quite namedIve forgotten what I called them. RONALD JOHNSON: I worked on it all the time. PETER OLEARY: Let me start by asking how did ARK change over the course of the twenty to twenty-five years or so of its composition? Since it was published in increments, you always included incidental notes describing the next step or two. Note: This interview was conducted on Novemin the evening at 3901 Drury Lane in Topeka, Kansas where Ronald Johnson lives with his father. © 2000, Literary Estate of Ronald Johnson RONALD JOHNSON INTERVIEW, November 19, 1995
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