SOURCE: Lask, Thomas. “Talking with Nemerov.” New York Times Book Review (14 January 1979): 43.

In the following essay, Lask reports on Nemerov's musings on his literary career during a visit to New York City.

Howard Nemerov, whose Collected Poems captured a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award last year, was in town recently on a brief visit from St. Louis, where he teaches at Washington University, to read at the 92d Street YM-YWHA. Mr. Nemerov's manner is almost formally courteous, but his judgments, usually succinct, are uncompromising, his language often harsh, his tone sardonic even if his humor is sometimes turned back on himself.

On the subject of his Collected Poems, Mr. Nemerov remarked that when the University of Chicago Press suggested a collection, he thought it too soon. But he did not think it too soon for the rewards it engendered. “After 20 years of being dismissed as an...