War Stories: Poems about Long Ago and Now - Hardcover

Nemerov, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226572420 ISBN 13: 9780226572420

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1987

Synopsis

Howard Nemerov has written often about wars great and small, the overtly political and the deeply personal. But only with the passage of time, a heightening of technique and deepening of insight, has he been able to write from his experience in World War II as he does here, where historical past and personal history finally dovetail. From "The War in the Heavens" to "The War in the Streets," Nemerov chronicles with devastating grace the harrowing of life."These new poems of Howard Nemerov are the poems of a master at his best. What is more, they are accessible. They speak out in a beautiful unclouded voice of the experience of a flyer of the Second World War. Although as 'war poems' they take their place among the best of that genre, they resonate far beyond their history with an arresting immediacy."—Karl Shapiro"Nemerov is the poet of our sanity, his the vision of the heroic ordinary. . . . Forty years after W. W. II, Nemerov's experiences in that war translate into timeless poetry. . . . Nemerov's poetry will outlast our to read it now is to take part in something of ourselves and our world that will—and should—endure."— The Virginia Quarterly Review"Throughout all his verse, formal language sets up a proscenium, keeping sentiment at a distance. In this elegant theatre, he tells stories that always, first, are works of art."—Denise Low, Kansas City Star

About this title

Reviews

This well-executed, satisfying collection focuses on Nemerov's experiences as a World War II fighter pilot: "The sweeping swallows low above the swale/ Among the insect victims as they rise/ To be picked off, and peace is satisfied." Reconsidered some 40 years later, his war resonates with irony: "That was the good war, the war we won/ As if there were no death, for goodness' sake." In fact, the sense of life "in transit" animates most of these poems: "the world/ Flowing away the way it always does,/ As if it were made of time." His subjects range from the topicalHalley's comet, the Shuttle disasterto the personal, like his elegy for a student. At his best, Nemerov weds craft and vision to irony: "Though God be dead, he lived so far away/ His sourceless light continues to fall on us." For contemporary collections. Robert Hudzik, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226572420
• ISBN 13: 9780226572420
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 60