Amon Liner (May 29, 1940 – July 26, 1976) was an American poet and playwright.
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.
Marstower (1972) Red Clay Publishers
Contents: Auschwitz & Other Artifacts
To Pythias from His Old Friend Damon
Morning Stroll
These, She Said, Are the Latter Times
Within The Interval
Too Many Eggs in the Quicksand
Sleepwalk Voyage to the Crystal Land, the Golden Shores
Don Juan Looks Back Upon Lot's Wife
Divertimenti 22
Towards a Definition of Pain
Crucifixion Cube, Pre-Cubist
Darkside of the Sun
True Love Endures Through the Ages
Statues Meeting
Painblanket, Two Rows
Micro/Meso/Macro Cosmology
The Death of Meat
Clocks, Squares, Fetuses & Glory Hands
The Time Lag Between Blue and White
God-Clone
Desire Is Tonk
Painting of Block-Style Sculpture
Ode for the Blue Fox
Time; or, The Philosophy of Silver & Yellow
The Children of Ferocity
"For Man, Love is Part of Life; But for Woman, Love Is the Whole of Life"
Dirge for Ecumenical Liberalism
Dirge for Poetic Liberalism
Dirge for National Liberalism
Dirge for Secular Reality
Creativity, the Theosophy of the Film Critics
Boswash
Chrome Grass: Poems of Love and Burial (1975) Carolina Wren Press, Library of Congress Catalog Number 76-8750
Contents: Preface
Explanation of 4-Ply Format
From the Depths of Pastoral Love
Hero & the Lady / I
Hero & the Lady / II
Hero & the Lady / III
Hero & the Lady / IV
Television Love
Climax!
LoveLove; or, The Hope of Things To Come
Exotic Nostalgia Love
Love Assemblage
PainLust; or, Elegy for the White Hats and Their Preferred Operational Mode of Love
DeathDeath; or, The Love of Objects Objectified
Burial Rites / I
Burial Rites / II
Burial Rites / III
Rose, A Color of Darkness (1980) Carolina Wren Press ISBN 0-932112-09-9
Contents: Rose, A Color of Darkness
Review of a Conceptual Art Exhibition
A Mondrian Poem On the Decline and fall of Greece, Chile, Brazil, Amerika, the Weimar Republic and the Language of Pellucidar
Easy Wishes, Or the Old Nag Won't Go No More
Accounting Autumn
Live & Still Life
There Is A Place To Go, I Feel
Trying To Sail Beyond the Map
Things That Are True of Blue
Homage to Magritte
Vergil's Finality: Voyage to the Center of July
A Statement of Fact
Why I Do Not Write Southern Poetry
A Meditation on Faust
On Being Shiftless
Divertimenti 24
Orpheus Again
True Grit Speechifies to Funky Midnight Rider
Gold Butter Won't Melt in the Golden Mouth
Bright Dark
Civic Religion
Scene from After ABM
Life Is Where You Find It
20,000 Leagues Through the Peaceable Kingdom
Mixed Company
Inside the Belly of the Language
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road
Poets In the Age of Ford Or: All Maps and No Territory
Churchill in Heaven
Naked Singularity Routine
language is a never
death song
Rose, A Color of Darkness
Brief Historical Survey
Brief Historical Survey
Language: the Womb of Words
Brain Revolution
Polar Rhetoric: Star Death
1975-1890
Ol' Cracker Barrel Linguistical Analysuh Smokes a Cob on Love
The Poem Is the Foundation of Its Language
Another Ego and Its Own
Game 3: A System Finding Game, With Subjectivities (As: History)
Nostalgia Reality
The Way of All Language
Project for Ecology Zero
And the Lst Shall be Bright
We Are the Children God Warned Nietzsche Against
A mirror which shall be nameless
Linear Poem 04 from the Meta Realm
Unbounded Direction Finding Game: or, Panopoly of the Machine Age
Riders of the Purple Language
Light Infantry Tactics
Poems From Notebooks 1974 – 1976
I do not know
The Proper Attitude Toward Death / Variations LXXIII
Mr. Smith Meets His Maker / Variations LXXXIX
Ode To What Flourishes / Variations XCIII
Lyric 1
Lyric 2
On the Power of Truth: a Parmenidean View
a poem about grandmother and Spring / Variations CXX
Variations CXXI
Directions for Contact / Variations CXXXIII
Lyric 7: Words For the Fathers
Love Is a Somehow Thing
The Age of Indifference: Part I / Variations CXLVI
Love and the Well-Worded Rose / New Variations 9
Parsifal & Co. / New Variations 11
Meditation On Essential Innocence / Variations CLXXI
A Pure Description / Variations CLXXII
Our Exciting Language & How It Grew / Variations CLXXIV
On Enlightened Detachment In An Impersonal Universe: or, How To Beat Inflation / Variations CLXXV
Coda / Variations CLXXVI
Variations CLXXIX
The Rational Description of Metaphor / Variations CLXXX
Ultimate Destination
Variations CLXXXIII
Variations CLXXXVI
What You See Is What There Is / Variations CLXXXV
Purity of Landscape / Variations CLXXXVII
Dr. Faustwitz, Spaceman (1983) Carolina Wren Press, ISBN 0-932112-16-1
Contents: Book I: Faustwitz At Auschwitz
Book II: Immortality: Day One
Book III: Faustwitz & the Planet of Love
Book IV: Faustwitz & the Planet of Death
Dr. Faustwitz, Spaceman (1988) Carolina Wren Press, ISBN 0-932112-19-6
Contents: Book V: Faustwitz Explorer
Book VI: Faustwitz Politician
Book VII: Faustwitz Conqueror
Book VIII: Faustwitz & the End of Earth
Book IX: Faustwitz & Planet Omega
Book X: Faustwitz-Hamilton
Book XI: Faustwitz Destroyer
Book XII: Faustwitz God