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The historian is terribly responsible to what he can discern are the facts of the case, but he's nothing if he doesn't make out a case.

Howard Nemerov

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Howard Nemerov
Age: 71 †
Born: 1920
Born: February 29
Died: 1991
Died: July 5
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Responsible
Case
Cases
Facts
Doesn
Nothing
Discern
Make
Terribly
Historian

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When you write it doesn't occur to you that somebody could think different from what you do.
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I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier.
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The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me.
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History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.
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It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page.
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A teacher is a person who never says anything once.
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I have a plot, but not much happens.
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I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.
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Short stories amount for the most part to parlour tricks, party favours with built-in snappers, gadgets for including recognition and reversals
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Shakespeare tells the same stories over and over in so many guises that it takes a long time before you notice.
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Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.
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History is where tensions were.
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Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it.
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I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.
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Children, to be illustrious is sad.
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Why are stamps adorned with kings and presidents? That we may lick their hinder parts and thump their heads.
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I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.
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