White is a Seattle-based publisher, editor, and teacher. In this essay, White examines the Old Testament influences on Ammons's poem and argues its status as an ars poetica.

"The City Limits" is one of A. R. Ammons's most highly praised and discussed poems. First appearing in his 1971 collection, Briefings, and then again two years later in his National Book Award-winning Collected Poems: 1951-1971, the poem earned the immediate respect and awe of many, including critic Harold Bloom, who, in the introduction to his Modern Critical Views of A. R. Ammons, called it "extraordinary." Poet Richard Howard who, in his review of Ammons entitled "The Spent Seer Consigns Order to the Vehicle of Change," wrote that it was the "greatest poem" of Briefings.

While there is general agreement that the poem addresses significant religious and spiritual themes, there has been less agreement as to the particulars of the...