I'm looking for a poem. Please help me find it.?

Question

The poem is called "working with tools" by A.R. Ammons

Answer 1

Working with Tools

I make a simple assertion
like a nice piece of stone
and you
alert to presence and entrance
man your pick and hammer

and by chip and deflection
distract simplicity
and cut my assertion
back to mangles, little heaps:

well, baby, that's the way
you get along: it's all right,
I understand such
ways of being afraid:
sometimes you want my come-on

hard, something to
take in and be around:
sometimes you want
a vaguer touch: I understand
and won't give assertion up.

Answer 2

It's on page 233 of this book:

Collected Poems, 1951-1971
(Format: Paperback)

Subject Poetry / Single Author / American

ISBN/SKU 0393321924

Author A. R. Ammons

Publisher W W Norton & Co Inc

Publish Date April 2001

Answer 3

Right-ly plucked from the bench
Pliers quickly find their way

To nestle comfortably into a
perfectly molded palm,
ready to accept the extension

One swift, almost unnoticeable, move
lifts an unused tool
off the bench

And, without more than notice
it is “flipped”, with the precision
of time, into the same
waiting palm

A move that is without thought.
Only the awareness of it
as it “floats” in the short span of air,
into acceptance

A move that has become
part of the piece
has become “the work”

Making jewelry... art
is a series, a flow
of moves
That, over time, becomes
part of the whole... self

Only after the move is complete
does thought enter
And, awareness dis-appears
as one thinks of the memory of the move

With thought comes conflict
What to do
Where will it go?
Is it “right”...

Even conflict
can manifest
into a thing of beauty

Answer 4

I couldn't find a copy of it online, but I found a place that has the book the poem is in.

http://www.booksmatter.com/b0393321924.htm

Answer 5

Alternatively, this is usually a good resource for Poems:

Answer 6

Did you google it?