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Although known primarily as a poet, Howard Nemerov has ...)
Although known primarily as a poet, Howard Nemerov has distinguished himself as a critic, short story writer, novelist, and poet. With nearly four dozen poems including two that have not yet been collected, eight stories, fourteen essays, and one complete novel, A Howard Nemerov Reader represents the career of one of America's most distinguished men of letters.
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The former Poet Laureate of the United States, Nemerov ...)
The former Poet Laureate of the United States, Nemerov gives us a lucid and precise twist on the commonplaces of everyday life.
The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1978.
"Howard Nemerov is a witty, urbane, thoughtful poet, grounded in the classics, a master of the craft. It is refreshing to read his work. . . . "--Minneapolis Tribune
"The world causes in Nemerov a mingled revulsion and love, and a hopeless hope is the most attractive quality in his poems, which slowly turn obverse to reverse, seeing the permanence of change, the vices of virtue, the evanescence of solidities and the errors of truth."--Helen Vendler, New York Times Book Review
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The former Poet Laureate of the United States, Nemerov ...)
The former Poet Laureate of the United States, Nemerov gives us a lucid and precise twist on the commonplaces of everyday life.
The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1978.
"Howard Nemerov is a witty, urbane, thoughtful poet, grounded in the classics, a master of the craft. It is refreshing to read his work. . . . "?Minneapolis Tribune
"The world causes in Nemerov a mingled revulsion and love, and a hopeless hope is the most attractive quality in his poems, which slowly turn obverse to reverse, seeing the permanence of change, the vices of virtue, the evanescence of solidities and the errors of truth."?Helen Vendler, New York Times Book Review
(Howard Nemerov-Poet Laureate of the United States, winner...)
Howard Nemerov-Poet Laureate of the United States, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets-was one of the most prolific and significant American poets of the twentieth century. By the time of his death in 1991, he had published fourteen collections of poetry. Judiciously selected and introduced by poet Daniel Anderson, The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov represents the broad spectrum of Nemerov's virtues as a poet-his intellige nce, his wit, his compassion, and his irreverence. It stands as the retrospective collection of the best of what Nemerov left behind, which is some of the finest poetry that the twentieth century produced. "To keep his errors down to a minimum," W. H. Auden wrote, "the internal Censor to whom a poet submits his work in progress should be a Censorate. It should include, for instance, a sensitive only child, a practical housewife, a logician, a monk, an irreverent buffoon a nd even, perhaps, hated by all others and returning their dislike, a brutal, foul-mouthed drill sergeant who considers all poetry rubbish." Such are the readers to whom the poetry of Howard Nemerov might appeal. He distinguished himself on the landscape of American letters as a writer of great versatility. More than a decade after his death, that claim still holds true. In this, the only edition of Nemerov's work that surveys his entire poetic output, first-time readers of these poems will find an introduction to a truly remarkable creative mind. Longtime admirers of Nemerov will be reminded once again of his significance as a craftsman and philosopher, and as a poetic steward of the many ways in which we experience the world.
Figures of thought: Speculations on the meaning of poetry & other essays
(The distinguished American poet's essays and lectures exa...)
The distinguished American poet's essays and lectures examine the primary processes of poetry, music, painting, and criticism and the common patterns of all art
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"The only way out," writes Howard Nemerov, "is the way ...)
"The only way out," writes Howard Nemerov, "is the way through, just as you cannot escape death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the presenthenceforth?the subject to which you are condemned." This is the record of the struggle to compose a novel; a struggle transformed by Nemerov into a far-reaching exploration of the creative process itself.
"He often shows bravery and shrewdness; the book is full of fine criticism and psychological insight. As always, his prose has that ease and transparency that make one forget one is reading; one seems simply to hear a voice speaking. Nemerov's improvised self-analysis has weaknesses, but few that he himself doesn't eventually recognize."New York Times Book Review
"In an age of explicitness, Nemerov's Journal of the Fictive Life is explicitly without vulgarity; in an age of revelation, it reveals only what counts. More then a book about creativity, it is a beautiful creation."Richard G. Stern
Howard Nemerov was an American writer was recognized for his novels, short stories, criticism, nonfiction, drama, and satiric poetry, as well as for being the third poet laureate of the United States.
Background
Howard Nemerov was born on March 1, 1920, in New York City. His parents were David and Gertrude (Russek) Nemerov.
David, his father, served as president and chairman of the board of Russeks, a now defunct but once prestigious retail store, where he earned the reputation of "Merchant Prince. "
Education
Young Howard attended the Society for Ethical Culture's Fieldstone School.
Graduated in 1937 as an outstanding student and second string team football fullback, he commenced studies at Harvard University where, in 1940, he was Bowdoin Essayist and, in 1941, earned the Bachelor of Arts degree.
Career
Upon graduation at the age of 21 he joined a Royal Canadian unit of the U. S. Army Airforce, serving as a pilot throughout World War II. After training in both Canada and England, he flew coastal command missions over the North Sea and was discharged in 1945 at the rank of first lieutenant.
Returning from the war, he and his wife spent a year in New York where he finished work on his first book of poetry. Nemerov then turned to college teaching-a profession he found compatible with his writing career. He served on the faculties of Hamilton College in Clinton, New York (1946 - 1948); Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont (1948 - 1966); Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts (1966 - 1969); and in 1969 joined the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
During the years 1963 and 1964, Nemerov served as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, where later he held the post of poet laureate of the United States (1988 - 1990).
The early promise of Nemerov's first book of verse, The Image and the Law (1947), was satisfyingly fulfilled in his later publication of poems, War Stories (1987), which provides a kindly light on the bleak landscape of contemporary American poetry. Nemerov persisted in a gentle irony which satirizes as much through self-deprecation as indictment of others, a kind of collective guilt and redemption exquisitely expressed in his 1980 poem "The Historical Judas". Transcending mere polemic, Nemerov's poetic argument with history captivates, by virtue of his humor and humanism. Composing in narrative, meditative, lyrical, satirical, and a variety of other forms, Nemerov's poems are profoundly concerned with the individual perception of nature, and human history as a part of nature-a concern which might be intellectually ponderous were it not for the comic relief provided by his native wit. But Nemerov is a poet, not a philosopher, and his poetic wit disperses accusations of academic philosophical waxing with a whip woven of puns, slang, and irony.
Facile accusations of academicality, intellectuality, and ideationality against his poetry pale in confrontation with the poetic imagery of his 1967 poem "The May Dancing. " Another 1967 poem, "Learning by Doing, " mildly reminiscent of Frost's "Birches, " is fraught with imagery, as is his 1989 publication "Landscape With Self Portrait. " If, in both his earlier and later works, his historical imagery is mistaken for history per se, the fault is not his.
Nemerov's quarrel with the world resounds with the lesson that humanity does not learn from history, but is seemingly doomed to repeat mistakes of the past. The importance of hope itself becomes ironic at the hands of the poet, as notice is made of the contradictions between the facts of history and the fictions of human aspiration. Sharing the collective guilt of the humorist, Nemerov's irony is sometimes too light an instrument for the dispatch of the sorrows of the human condition. Nemerov was perhaps a bit too accepting of man's inevitable fate; but neither is he a Pangloss (incurable optimist) nor a rager against the night. Nemerov's poetic vision, his perceptual struggle with illusion and reality through a mysterious roseate but dark glass, never descended from poetic flight to epistemological speculation-not even on that most dangerous killing ground of political poetry.
Connections
Howard Nemerov married Margaret Russel, on January 26, 1944. Howard and Margaret parented three sons: David, Alexander, and Jeremy.