SOURCE: Mills, William. “Introduction.” In The Stillness in Moving Things: The World of Howard Nemerov, pp. vii-xii. Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1975.

In the following introductory chapter to a book-length study of Nemerov, Mills notes that his purpose will be to align Nemerov's thinking with the philosophical trends of his age.

Howard Nemerov once remarked “for good or ill nobody seems to have much to say about what I write. They either dislike it rather harshly, or say it's underrated and very fine … but that's about it.” Happily, this situation is changing, and one does not need long vision to see that, during the seventies, readings of Nemerov may well appear on the scene with a surge resembling that in Stevens criticism during the fifties and sixties.

When I first undertook this study, there was no extended investigation of Nemerov's poetry in sight. Since that time, however, Julia...