Tape for the Turn of the Year

In the form of a journal covering the period December 6 1963 through January 10 1964 A. R. Ammons’s long thin poem was written on a roll of adding-machine tape then transferred foot by foot to manuscript. He chose this method as a serious experiment in making a poem adapt to something outside itself. The tape determined both the length of the poem’s lines and when it ends. Tape for the Turn of the Year is a poem of infinite variety blessed by the rich resources of one of this century’s greatest poets. By turns witty serious lyrical and meditative it is at once a superbly entertaining book and a significant literary achievement.