SOURCE: An interview with Howard Nemerov, in Salmagundi, Nos. 31-32, Fall, 1975/Winter, 1976, pp. 109-19.

In the following interview, which was conducted in March 1975, Nemerov discusses such topics as his composition process, the relationship between poetry and meaning, politics, and the influence of other writers on his works.

[Robert Boyers] : In the past year or so, Howard, you 've written a great many poems, by any standards more than most poets expect to write in several years. Is there any way you can explain to yourself, or anyone else, how this came to be?

[Howard Nemerov]: Well, I'd settled down thinking to myself, listen, you're 54 years old; who the hell goes on in this business, year after year, waiting for something to happen? You're supposed to grow up, you might as well cease to expect. And I said to my old lady, the minute classes stop I am facing...