Top 37 Quotes by Howard Nemerov

When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it.

A lot happens by accident in poetry.

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.