SOURCE: Bartholomay, Julia A. “A Doctrine of Signatures.” In The Shield of Perseus: The Vision and Imagination of Howard Nemerov, pp. 10-38. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972.

In the following essay, Bartholomay closely examines Nemerov's complex concepts of language, imagery, and the poetic imagination.

In a recent poem, Howard Nemerov describes the artist as one who “sees / How things must be continuous with themselves / As with whole worlds that they themselves are not, / In order that they may be so transformed.”¹ These words also transcribe the poetic intelligence and imagination which inform Nemerov's poems. His lens is prismatic, and his ear is attuned to fresh articulating possibilities in all areas of being. He sees paradox in all phenomena and how the most unlike things define each other and, in so doing, gain their identity. Therefore, his imagination, moving on many levels of experience, is paradoxical, reflexive, and generative...