SOURCE: Maio, Samuel. “Howard Nemerov, Blank Verse, and ‘The Amateurs of Heaven.’” Formalist 3, no. 1 (1992): 85-88.

In the following essay, Maio explicates Nemerov's “The Amateurs of Heaven,” finding in its blank verse a suggestion of an ordered universe.

“The Amateurs of Heaven,” one of the new poems collected in Howard Nemerov's posthumous Trying Conclusions: New and Selected Poems 1961-1991, ranks among the very best of the Nemerov oeuvre. This poem, written within the final years of his life, also exemplifies Nemerov's particular and characteristic use of blank verse. Much as Wordsworth and Frost made special use of this centuries-old rhythmic measure, each shaping it to suit his unique personal voice, Nemerov developed a blank verse style distinctively his own.

Combining the gentle, steady ascension of the stresses of conversational diction with the tension of the dramatic situation being described, Nemerov's carefully syncopated blank verse disarms readers (or, more appropriately...