"Nemerov's contribution to our
literature--as a gifted writer of fiction and critical prose, but pre-eminently
as a poet-- does not seem to me to have received as much celebrity as it
deserves. Nemerov's virtues are all in fact unfashionable ones for our
time: vivid intelligence, an irreverent
sense of humor, a mastery of formal verse, an awareness of mystery"
("Books" 3). Although known
primarily as a poet, Howard Nemerov has also distinguished himself as a critic,
short story writer, and novelist. With nearly four dozen published works,
Howard Nemerov has become one of America's most distinguished men of
writing. His subjects range from all
parts of the human mind, from war to religion, and death to nature.
Nemerov was born on March 1, 1920, in New York
City. Until he moved to Vermont in 1948,
New York influenced most of his poems.
Nemerov's wealthy and culturally refined parents sent him to Fieldston
School. At this private school, Nemerov
was an impeccable student and a strong athlete.
After graduating in 1937, he went to Harvard, where he received his
Bachelor of Arts degree. At the start of
World War II, Nemerov became attracted to the air force. However, like all poets, this attraction
gradually grew into terror at the reality of war ("Nemerov"
249). Nemerov first served as a flying
officer with the RAF Coastal Command, attacking German ships over the North
Sea. Then in 1944, he was transferred to
the Eighth United States Army Air Force, based in Lincolnshire. Later he served in a unit of the Royal
Canadian Air Force attached to the United States Air Force. In 1944, he married an English girl, to whom
he's still married. After the war,
Nemerov and his wife lived in New York for a year. During this time, his first volume of poetry,
The Image and the Law, was published. In
1946 he held a position as instructor of English at Hamilton College, Clinton,
New York; in 1948 he joined Bennington College in Vermont as a teacher, with
which he was associated with until 1966, when he moved to Brandeis University
in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Nemerov is one of the most productive and
proficient writers in the modern era.
Nemerov's first book of verse, The Image and the Law, appeared in 1947,
followed by The Salt Garden (1955), Mirrors and Windows (1958), New and
Selected Poems (1960), The Next Room of the Dream: Poems and Two Plays (1963), Blue Swallows
(1967), Gnomes and Occasions (1973), The Western Approaches (1975), and
Collected Poems (1977). Besides books of
poetry, Nemerov has published three works of fiction (The Melodramatics;
Federigo, or, The Power of Love; The Homecoming Game), two collections of short
stories (A Commodity of Dreams; Stories, Fables, and Other Diversions), two
plays (Cain, Endor), two collections of essays and criticism (Poetry and
Fiction: Essays; Reflections on Poetry and Poetics), and "the unclassified
literary- psychoanalytical" Journal of the Fictive Life (Donoghue
253). Nemerov has received numerous
awards, including a Guggenheim in 1968, the Frank O'Hara Memorial Prize in
1971, the National Book Award in 1977, and the famed Pulitzer Prize in
1978. He also edited and introduced
poems in the Laurel Poetry Series and is the editor of Poets on Poetry and
Poetry and Criticism. In 1965 he was
made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1966 an
associate of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The two main elements in Nemerov's character,
poetry and fiction, are reflected in both his life and his work. Nemerov believes that these two elements are
opposed and that he must attempt to bring them together. Denis Donoghue states, ". . . this inner
division, under constant pressure of Nemerov's poetic discipline and
intelligence, accounts for the power of this writer who has become, more than
any other contemporary poet, the spokesman for the existential science-
oriented . . . , liberal mind of the twentieth century" (250). This deeply divided personality is evident to
readers of his poetry and fiction.
In his first published work, The Image and the
Law, Nemerov's main theme is death. The
title of this book alludes to the two methods humans have a way of looking at
things. The first way is realistically through
the eye, "image", and the second is imaginatively through the mind,
"law" (Donoghue 254).
Throughout this book, Nemerov revolves around his realization of death,
a realization brought out from years of fighting in World War II. Nemerov writes about the many types of death:
"casual, callous, accidental, and inevitable" (Donoghue 254).
Along with death, Nemerov's other main subjects
are cities, religion, and wit. Both
religion and wit have carried on in his later poetry. With religion, Nemerov has always referred to
it directly. Saints and angels are noted
throughout his subjects and titles.
References to Christ, God, St. Augustine, and Aquinas are frequent. The humor in Nemerov's poetry is also
evident. His wit ranges from the
outspoken to "the more subtle debunking in "'History of a Literary
Movement'" (Nemerov 250). Nemerov
once said "the serious and the funny are one" (Nemerov 250). This viewpoint is held in both his poems of
wit and of seriousness. Even his poems
on death are not always cold and dismal.
These poems are frequently marked with irony and wit.
Of all these subjects, religion seems to
stand out. Throughout history, man, in
fear, has attempted to alter reality into order and theory to define human
purpose. Religion models society around its ideas to ensure eternal happiness
in heaven, "an escape from the tyrannical fits of nature" (Andrews
126). The human need to understand is
depicted in both Nemerov's life and his poems.
Nemerov is a Jewish Puritan. In
religion, he had an inner conflict, like before with poetry and fiction. As Frederick Andrews put it, Nemerov
"felt ambivalent towards his Jewish heritage which, because of his
reasoning capabilities, resulted in inner conflict" (126). His "reasoning capabilities" were
gained from a privileged upbringing.
Throughout history, man, in fear, has attempted to alter reality into
order and theory to define human purpose. Religion models society around its
ideas to ensure eternal happiness in heaven, "an escape from the
tyrannical fits of nature" (Andrews 126).
The human need to understand is depicted in many of Nemerov's
poems. In the poem "Orphic
Scenario," he presents the relationship between order and reality. He uses
his knowledge of history to compare religiously historical figures with the current
state of man. Nemerov uses literary and
religious references to depict order as a man-made concept that has no effect
on "the intrinsic passion of reality", leaving man "powerless in
the hands of fate" (Andrews 127).
The first portion of the poem explores the evil vitality of reality
through literary references:
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage
(The World's a stage). And bid the
soldiers shoot.
Loud music, drums and guns, the lights go
up.
Cheap? Yes, of course it's cheap. Reality
Comes dearer, but reality's much the same
As this dark malodorous box of taken
tricks,
Reality's where the hurled light beams
and breaks,
Against the solemn wall, a spattered egg,
The seed and food of being. If the seed
And food, spilt open thus, splayed as a
blaze
On the blank of limit, focused on the
yolk
.
.
Resemble the things we think we see and
know,
Lips, noses, eyes, the grimaces thereof
Compounded, playing on the fetal night,
That too is enough, if not too much.
Order
Is fused of such refuse, eternity
Lusts after the productions of time.
Nemerov
contemplates the life of the Shakespearean character, Hamlet, as it relates to
humanity. He recalls Fortinbras's last words on lines one and two, "Bear
Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage / (The world a stage).", to explain
that the struggle Hamlet underwent is the same as the universal questioning of
humanity (Andrews 129). Hamlet faces an
inner conflict. He must choose between
his logical, non-violent nature and his loyalty to his father, which is compelling
him to avenge his father's death.
Nemerov uses Hamlet to show how humanity, battles with rational thought.
Similarly, on line six, Nemerov compares reality to a "dark malodorous box
of taken tricks." He is referring
to the evil Greek god, Pandora, and her box.
Pandora, unable to resist temptation and curiosity, opened a box that
released all of the world's vices and troubles.
This reference explains that Nemerov feels that reality may disturb
order, leaving man dependent on faith. On lines eight and nine, Nemerov writes
about a religious reference: "a
splattered egg, / The seed and food of being." Today, the egg symbolizes Easter and the
resurrection of Christ. Andrews
interprets the line as a "metaphor to reveal the importance of reality as
it pertains to the interconnectedness of all life, acting as the sustainer,
'the food'" (130). The vital and unmerciful force of reality is what holds
life together. Through literary and
religious references, Nemerov explains that man attempts to control the course
of natural events, but fails because reality acts independently from man.
"Orphic Scenario" reveals these efforts. Andrews states, "Nemerov uses his poetry
as an outlet for voicing one of his 'chief concerns [which] is that of
'reading' the meaning of the world, of events and phenomena.' (131) The reason behind his malicious is unknown to
the reader. Even this poem shows
Nemerov's irony. This irony of his
poetry "is that the same understanding and questioning that he criticizes,
makes his life the lonely confusion that inspires incredible poetry (131). Humanity, like Nemerov, should cope with the
reality that: ". . . . Order / Is
fused of such refuse, eternity / Lusts after the productions of time"
(Lines 20-23)
Works Cited
Andrews,
Frederick. Poems of the Modern Era. Detroit: Tristar Publishing, 1972.
"Books by
Howard Nemerov."
http://www.system.missouri.edu/upress/otherbooks/nemerrea.htm
upress@www.system.missouri.edu. Missouri:
University of Missouri Press.
1-20-97. Internet.
Donoghue, Denis,
ed. Seven American Poets from MacLeish
to Nemerov. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975.
"Nemerov,
Howard." Compton's
Encyclopedia. Compton's New Media, Inc.,
1996. CD-ROM.
Nemerov, Howard,
ed. Poets on Poetry. New York:
Basic Books, 1966.
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