Remembering Howard Nemerov

It's been a busy time these last few months, and I have several updates to post!

I thought I would start by posting this moving poem by Howard Nemerov, two-time Poet Laureate and esteemed professor of English here at the university from 1969 to 1991. I never had the chance to meet him, but he was a dear friend of Joseph Tucker, who quoted the poem below, on the spur of the moment, at his 92nd birthday party last weekend. It reminded us all of how connected we are, and how dependent upon each other.

Professor Nemerov is well represented in Special Collections. His personal papers -- including drafts, with manuscript revisions, of this poem -- are housed in the Manuscript Unit. His personal library forms part of our book collections, and his university-related activities are documented in the University Archives. We welcome scholars and friends of Professor Nemerov to stop in for a visit anytime.

The Dependencies

This morning, between two branches of a tree
Beside the door, epeira once again
Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap.
I test his early-warning system and
It works, he scrambles forth in sable with
The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows
The meaning of. And I remember now
How yesterday at dusk the nighthawks came
Back as they do about this time each year,
Grey squadrons with the slashes white on wings
Cruising for bugs beneath the bellied cloud.
Now soon the monarchs will be drifting south,
And then the geese will go, and then one day
The little garden birds will not be here.
See how many leaves already have
Withered and turned; a few have fallen, too.
Change is continuous on the seamless web,
Yet moments come like this one, when you feel
Upon your heart a signal to attend
The definite announcement of an end
Where one thing ceases and another starts;
When like the spider waiting on the web
You know the intricate dependencies
Spreading in secret through the fabric vast
Of heaven and earth, sending their messages
Ciphered in chemistry to all the kinds,
The whisper down the bloodstream: it is time.

    [Mr. Tucker's birthday addendum: "...to eat!"]

From: The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1977)

Comments

[Neil Goldstein]

I was a student of his. Not a good one, but his words, face and voice have stuck with me these many years, particularly his statement to me that a poem is a riddle and to write them well, I should learn to like riddles.

His words crop up in unexpected places and moments. When, in Newtown PA, at the welcoming to new students to George School, 13 years ago, the Headmaster read a poem about leaving one's child at school. As he started, I turned to my wife and child and said "I think that's a poem by Howard Nemerov." (It was,) and went on, "I was once a rotten student of his. He had such a wonderful command of language and made me realize how much I had to work to write well."

I will miss him. He taught me to love language. Like all good teachers, he is not gone but will remain a part of me for as long as I have memory and can write.

[suzanne cleary]

I was a student in the first graduating class of the Creative Writing Program at Washington University,1979, and Howard Nemerov--along with Donald Finkel and John Morris--was on the panel that critiqued my thesis, a collection of poems; that day, the three poets listened to me read a few poems, and they asked me questions. Howard Nemerov did not teach graduate students, because he preferred to teach undergraduates, but he had agreed to be on the panel out of collegial support for the new CW program, and his kindness extended to me, as well. After I read, when it was time for the questions, he took from his suit coat a small stack of index cards, on which he had written "favorite lines" from my poems. Looking back, I don't think any of the lines were worthy of that attention, let alone that praise, but I have never forgotten that sweetness.

Also, I should add that, in my second year in the Creative Writing program, I worked in the Rare Book Collection, with Holly and, more closely, Ida, who taught me how to mix the special wheat paste. With my small paychecks I bought the first volumes of what has, over the years, become quite a nice collection of contemporary poetry--Howard Nemerov's volumes especially precious to me.

After one of his readings, someone asked Howard Nemerov, "How do you write your poems?" and he gave the best answer I've ever heard to this question: "Well," he said, "it's either easy or it's impossible."

Thank you so much for prompting me to remember this fine poet.