Archie Randolph Ammons was born on February 18, 1926, at his parents' farmhouse near Whiteville, North Carolina. His childhood was spent with his parents and two older sisters on the family's tobacco farm, which his grandfather had built. It was during these formative years that he developed the understanding of nature and appreciation of its complexity that is evident in almost all of his poems. After graduating from Whiteville High School in 1943, he went to work in the navy shipyard at Wilmington, North Carolina. He enrolled in the Navy in 1944 and did a tour of duty in the South Pacific during the end of World War II. While in the Navy, during the long night watches, Ammons began to write poetry.

When the war was over, Ammons took advantage of the G. I. Bill, a law that subsidized college tuition for veterans. He attended Wake Forest University, changing...