This paper focuses on A. R. Ammons's vision of plants and fungi in the light of ecology and post-modernism. Ammons incorporated ecological and post-modern symbol of plants and fungi including lichen, moss, weed and grass into his poetry. He also recognizes values in the seemingly insignificant, and finds the hidden meanings of the common, the little, the small, the unnoticed, and the lowly. Ammons already disclosed the importance and values of these little things in the ecosystem of nature. While looking at what is lowly, he found the absolute and symbiotic relationship among the lowly, the hidden, and the unnoticed. In general, three kingdoms of classification consist of fungi, plants and animals in scientific terms. In this paper, I chose two kingdoms, which have the symbolic meanings. Ammons values the periphery and the dark over the beautiful, which man prefers. To deconstruct the opposites, he ventures to overturn the artificial or man-made hierarchy of nature. The evidence that Ammons overturned the hierarchy is indicated in that he valued those that are common, unnoticed, lowly, and insignificant in his poetry. This ecological vision of Ammons coincides with the deconstructive strategy of Derrida, in that they both resist aqainst the violent unity by which human reason controls in nature.

• 양재용 | Yang, Jae Yong