SOURCE: Eberhart, Richard. “Five Poets.” Kenyon Review 14, no. 1 (winter 1952): 174-75.

In the following excerpt from a review of several new books of poetry, including Nemerov's Guide to the Ruins, Eberhart comments on Nemerov's ability to be detached while at the same time communicating emotion.

From Howard Nemerov's second book of poems [Guide to the Ruins] I receive the impression of a poet thoroughly immersed in a deep knowledge, capable of sarcasm, never removed or far from irony, yet he has not the Lowellian rage nor the Jarrellian fantasy; nor the Gregorian chant.

He is conscious of universal suffering, and of particular suffering as essential to many war situations. But he is not overwhelmed on the one hand, nor a didact on the other. He watches. He is able to maintain the artist's poise and detachment in every poem and thus not to become sentimental nor to preach. There...