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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. "

Howard Nemerov

Impossible

History

Deal

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Howard Nemerov

Ugly

Even

" I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem. "

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" I think there's one thing which distinguishes our art - we don't consider. We don't think. We write a little verse because it comes to us. "

Howard Nemerov

Write

Think

" The nice thing about the Bible is it doesn't give you too many facts. Two an a half lines and it tells you the whole story and that leaves you a great deal of freedom to elaborate on how it might have happened. "

" Mostly the thought and the verse come inseparably. In my poem Poetics, it's as close as I come to telling how I do it. "

Howard Nemerov

Telling

Poem

" I do insist on making what I hope is sense so there's always a coherent narrative or argument that the reader can follow. "

Howard Nemerov

Argument

Hope

" I never abandoned either forms or freedom. I imagine that most of what could be called free verse is in my first book. I got through that fairly early. "

" I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know. "

" We're not in love with Literature all the time - especially when you have to teach it every day. "

" When modern writers gave up telling stories, they gave up the greatest thing we had. "

" I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier. "

" 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 the first burst of something wonderful. "

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

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" Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed. "

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

" A lot happens by accident in poetry. "

" 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. "

" The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me. "