Howard Nemerov (February 29, 1920 – July 5, 1991) was an American poet. Nemerov was the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence at
Washington University in St. Louis. He was twice
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990. For ''The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov'' (1977), he won the
National Book Award for Poetry,
["National Book Awards – 1978"]
National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...
. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
(With acceptance speech by Nemerov and essay by Ross Gay from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award came five years after the first Pulitzers were awarded in other categories; Joseph Pulitzer's will had not ment ...
,
["Poetry"]
''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-07. and
Bollingen Prize.
Biography
Nemerov was born on February 29, 1920, in New York City; his parents were David Nemerov (who among other things was a national director of the
Anti Defamation League of
B'nai B'rith) and Gertrude Russek. The Nemerovs were a
Russian Jewish
The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest po ...
couple who lived in New York City and he rose to become chairman of
Russeks, a
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...
women's wear department store. His younger sisters were the photographer
Diane Arbus and sculptor/painter Renee Nemerov Sparkia Brown. The elder Nemerov's talents and interests extended to art connoisseurship, painting,
philanthropy
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...
, and photography — talents and interests undoubtedly influential upon his son. Young Howard was raised in a sophisticated New York City environment where he attended the Society for
Ethical Culture's Fieldston 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 he received a bachelor's degree. Throughout
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, he served as a pilot, first in the
Royal Canadian Air Force
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; ) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environmental commands within the unified Can ...
and later the
U.S. Army Air Forces. He married in 1944, and after the war, having earned the rank of first lieutenant, returned to New York with his wife to complete his first book.
Nemerov then began teaching, first at
Hamilton College
Hamilton College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, Clinton, New York. It was established as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and received its c ...
and later at
Bennington College
Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont, United States. Founded as a women’s college in 1932, ,
Brandeis University
Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...
, and finally
Washington University in St. Louis, where he was
Edward Mallinckrodt
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals plc is an American-Irish domiciled manufacturer of specialty pharmaceuticals (namely, Adrenocorticotropic hormone (medication), adrenocorticotropic hormone), generic drugs and imaging agents. In 2017, it generated 90 ...
Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence from 1969 until his death in 1991. In 1999, Washington University dedicated a dormitory, The Howard Nemerov House, to him. Nemerov's numerous collections of poetry include ''Trying Conclusions: New and Selected Poems, 1961-1991'' (University of Chicago Press, 1991); ''The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov'' (1977), which won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize; ''The Winter Lightning: Selected Poems'' (1968); ''Mirrors and Windows'' (1958); ''The Salt Garden'' (1955); and ''The Image and the Law'' (1947). His novels have also been commended; they include ''The Homecoming Game'' (1957), ''Federigo: Or the Power of Love'' (1954), and ''The Melodramatists'' (1949).
Nemerov received many awards and honors, among them fellowships from The
Academy of American Poets and The
Guggenheim Foundation, a
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
grant, the
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
, the
Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the
St. Louis Literary Award
The St. Louis Literary Award has been presented yearly since 1967 to a distinguished figure in literature. It is sponsored by the Saint Louis University Library Associates.
Winners
Past Recipients of the Award:
*2025 Colson Whitehead
*2024 J ...
from the
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Missi ...
Library Associates, the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one ano ...
, and the first
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry.
Nemerov served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress in 1963 and 1964, as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets beginning in 1976, and two terms as poet laureate of the United States from 1988 to 1990. In 1990 he was inducted into the
St. Louis Walk of Fame. Nemerov died of cancer in 1991 in
University City, Missouri
University City (colloquially, U. City) is an inner-ring suburb of the city of St. Louis in St. Louis County, in the U.S. state of Missouri. The population was measured at 35,065 by the 2020 census.
The city is one of the older suburbs in th ...
. The
Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award was instituted in 1994 to honor him, and by 2008 about 3000 sonnets were entered annually in the associated competition.
Poetry
Nemerov's work is formalist. He wrote almost exclusively in fixed forms and meter. While he is known for his meticulousness and refined technique, his work also has a reputation for being witty and playful. He is compared to
John Hollander and
Philip Larkin.
"A Primer of the Daily Round" is his most frequently anthologized poem, and highly representative of Nemerov's poetic style. It is an archetypal Elizabethan sonnet, demonstrative of the prosodic creativity for which Nemerov is famous. Another widely appreciated poem is "The War in the Air," which draws on his wartime experience as a pilot.
Nemerov's "Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry" is frequently taught as an example of an
Ars Poetica as it describes the nearly imperceptible change between rain and snow while still maintaining the formal poetic elements of rhyme and meter. A critical review by Mary Kinzie said of it: "the poem imperceptibly thickens itself out of the stream of prose."
Nemerov also published a short story in the book ''Stories Selected from the Unexpected'' by Bennett Cerf under the pseudonym Joseph Cross called "Exchange of Men". http://www.philsp.com/homeville/anth/s194.htm
Personal life
Nemerov was brother to photographer
Diane Nemerov Arbus and father to art historian
Alexander Nemerov, Professor of the History of Art and American Studies at
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
.
Bibliography
Poetry collections
*''The Image and the Law'' (1947)
*''Guide to the Ruins'' (1950)
*''The Vacuum'' (1955)
*''The Salt Garden'' (1955)
*''Mirrors and Windows'' (1958)
*''The Next Room of The Dream: Poems and Two Plays'' (1962)
*''The Blue Swallows'' (1967)
*''The Winter Lightning: Selected Poems'' (1968)
*''Gnomes & Occasions: Poems'' (1973) University of Chicago Press
*''The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov'' (1977) — winner of the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and Bollingen Prize
*''Sentences'' (1980)
*''Inside the Onion'' (1984)
*''War Stories: Poems about Long Ago and Now'' (1987)
*''Trying Conclusions: New and Selected Poems, 1961-1991'' (1992)
*''Grace to be Said at the Supermarket''
*''The War in the Air''
Prose
*''The Melodramatists'' (1949)
*''Federigo: Or the Power of Love'' (1954)
*''The Homecoming Game'' (1957)
*''The Commodity of Dreams and Other Stories'' (1959)
*''Journal of the Fictive Life'' (1965)
*''Stories, Fables and Other Diversions'' (1971)
Literary scholarship
* ''The Oak in the Acorn: On ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and on Teaching Proust, Who Will Never Learn'' (1987)
About Howard Nemerov
* Rodney Stenning Edgecombe. ''A Reader's Guide to the Poetry of Howard Nemerov'' (Poetry Salzburg, 1999)
References
External links
*
Academy of American Poets - Biographical Sketch and Links to Poetry*
ttp://stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductee/howard-nemerov/ St. Louis Walk of FameHoward Nemerov "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Skylark" The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1964 Accessed June 26, 2012
St. Louis Walk of Fame
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nemerov, Howard
American poets laureate
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
Jewish American poets
Formalist poets
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
Bollingen Prize recipients
National Book Award winners
United States National Medal of Arts recipients
Washington University in St. Louis faculty
Ethical Culture Fieldston School alumni
Harvard College alumni
Poets from Missouri
Poets from New York City
Writers from St. Louis County, Missouri
Deaths from cancer in Missouri
1920 births
1991 deaths
20th-century American poets
Russek family
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Canadian World War II pilots
United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II
United States Army Air Forces officers
Hamilton College (New York) faculty
Bennington College faculty
Brandeis University faculty
Harvard Crimson football players