Quotes By Howard Nemerov

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

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

For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.

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

Shakespeare tells the same stories over and over in so many guises that it takes a long time before you notice.

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

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