American - Poet | February 29, 1920 - July 5, 1991
The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me.
Howard Nemerov
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Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed.
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A lot happens by accident in poetry.
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I do insist on making what I hope is sense so there's always a coherent narrative or argument that the reader can follow.
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I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.
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It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page.
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I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.
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Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.
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Language is remarkable, except under the extreme constraints of mathematics and logic, it never can talk only about what it's supposed to talk about but is always spreading around.
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A chronicle is very different from history proper.
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A teacher is a person who never says anything once.
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History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.
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