Amon Liner

Biography

Amon Liner was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He received a B.A. in English from Kenyon College, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received a Masters in Drama from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of the Dialectic Society. He also completed a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He edited poetry for the Red Clay Reader, and was a book reviewer for The Charlotte Observer. A severe congenital heart defect limited his physical exertion, and led to his death soon after the appearance of his second published work. The majority of his work was published posthumously by his friend and editor Judy Hogan of Carolina Wren Press. The Greensboro Review awards an Amon Liner poetry prize. In 2000, the Asheville Poetry Review named him one of 10 Great Neglected Poets of the 20th Century.

Liner had a fiercely devoted group of fellow poets, including Fred Chappell and Tom Huey. Liner's work especially embraces the relationships between artifacts and their creators. In an interview in the "New Voices" series produced by WUNC, Liner humorously contrasted himself with the "druidism" of poets who seemed to celebrate only uninhabited nature. Rather, he delighted in the poetic possibilities of technology, whether rusted cars, computers, or armaments. He never hesitated to demand of his readers a comprehensive knowledge of history, language, science and engineering. While recognizing the sometimes sad consequences of human creations, his tone was most often mischievous or contemplative.

The most monumental of Liner's work is the two volume The Far Journey and Final End of Dr. Faustwitz, Spaceman. Discovering immortality in the midst of a Nazi death camp, Dr. Faustwitz sets out to avenge evil by killing God. To amass power towards that end, Faustwitz gathers a crew for a journey through space, collecting wisdom from one planet after another. Through this journey, Liner explores every aspect of sense, conscience, science, technology, culture, language and nature to delve even more deeply into humanity than into the depths of space. The density of the language makes the ascent of the work Himalayan in magnitude, but the view you get is incomparable.

Liner's papers are archived at the UNC-Chapel Hill Southern Historical Collection.

Works