Familiar Quotes by Howard Nemerov

A chronicle is very different from history proper.

— Howard Nemerov

When Robert Frost was alive, I was known as the other new England poet, which is to be barely known at all.

— Howard Nemerov

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.

— Howard Nemerov

When you write it doesn't occur to you that somebody could think different from what you do.

— Howard Nemerov

Both poet and painter want to reach the silence behind the language, the silence within the language. Both painter and poet want their work…

— Howard Nemerov

Occasionally a student writer comes up with something really beautiful and moving, and you won't know for years if it was an accident or…

— Howard Nemerov

I like all my children, even the squat and ugly ones.

— Howard Nemerov

It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of…

— Howard Nemerov

Obvious enough that generalities work to protect the mind from the great outdoors; is it possible that this was in fact their first purpose?

— Howard Nemerov

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

— Howard Nemerov

When in still air and still in summertime A leaf has had enough of this, it seems To make up its mind to go;…

— Howard Nemerov

A lot happens by accident in poetry.

— Howard Nemerov