SOURCE: Davison, Peter. “New Poetry: The Generation of the Twenties.” Atlantic 122 (February 1968): 143.

In the following excerpted review of The Blue Swallows, Davison praises the clarity and philosophical sophistication of Nemerov's poems.

The poems in Howard Nemerov's sixth collection, The Blue Swallows, seem to exhibit their grace under less pressure than is evident in the work of poets like Merwin and Dugan. If so, it may be a tribute to the poet for turning away the charge of events with a flick of the wrist, like a matador. These poems have a calm surface, whether they be witty glosses on the Great Society or somber riddles about man and nature and history. The surpassing virtue of Nemerov's poetry has always been clarity rather than passion. In this latest book he has begun to take on the apparently (but only apparently) easy movement that Robert Frost mastered, and to tackle...