SOURCE: Anderson, Doug. “Poet in Prose.” New York Times Book Review (28 April 1991): 15.

In the following review of A Howard Nemerov Reader, Anderson says that the volume points to Nemerov as a teacher and reiterates the poet's notion of the interplay of the mind with the universe.

This fine, labyrinthine collection will delight readers who are familiar only with Howard Nemerov's poetry. Here we have his fiction, which allows him a much wider emotional and imaginative range than do his poems, and his essays, which reveal Mr. Nemerov as brilliantly incisive, if occasionally curmudgeonly. There is also a selection of his poetry from 1947 to the present, including some of his finest: “To Clio, Muse of History” and “The Mud Turtle.”

Perhaps the most prominent voice in A Howard Nemerov Reader is Nemerov as teacher, fiercely insisting that poetry is a thing like no other thing, an act of conjuration...