The Unsung Heroes of Holy Garbage: An Analysis of Waste in A.R. Ammons’s Garbage

This essay analyzes A.R. Ammons Garbage (1993) through the lens of Waste Studies by focusing on interactions between material and metaphorical uses waste, scrutinizing complex trope dump-ziggurat, paying special attention to neglected figure waste collector or garbage worker. In 1990s, when published his long poem, were becoming pivotal tropes in American poetry. While deals with inescapable presence homonymous he also goes beyond materiality order incorporate more resonances. Arguably, most valuable insights that has offer derive precisely from its striking juxtaposition immaterial, scatological eschatological. Most importantly, not only sings a hymn huge dump implications, but “unsung heroes” modernity (Bauman 2004): anonymous workers who collect maintain landfill.