SOURCE: Hecht, Anthony. “Writers' Rights and Readers' Rights.” Hudson Review 21 (spring 1968): 213-15.

In the following review of The Blue Swallows, Hecht declares Nemerov's poetry to be worthy of a major literary award.

“small Moment”

Isaiah 54:7

Death is serious, or else all things are serious except death. A player who dies automatically disqualifies for the finals. If there were no death nothing could be taken seriously, not truth, not beauty, but that is not a situation which we need to face. Men invented the gods, but they discovered death; therefore, although the skull is said to grin, the flesh is serious, and frowns, for the world is not a stage. And the gay spirit, gone through wisdom to absurdity, welcomes the light that shudders in the leaves in all weathers and at any season since love, the pure, unique, and useless virtue, climbs in the stalk and concentrates this...