SOURCE: Schindler, Holly. A review of Nemerov's “Acorn, Yom Kippur.” Explicator 57 (summer 1999): 233-35.

In the following review, Schindler analyzes the poem “Acorn, Yom Kippur” in detail.

The acorn in Howard Nemerov's poem [“Acorn, Yom Kippur”] is described as a “fallen thing,” with “its yarmulka still on” (lines 1-2) and symbolizes Nemerov himself. Nemerov has fallen away from Judaism but remains aware of the influence and importance of his faith in the development of his art.

The poet expresses a sense of guilt for having lost what was once so central to the development of his “[l]anguage and thought” (5). According to Ross Labrie, Nemerov has asserted that religious doubt “sterilizes the artist, whereas the attitude of belief […] is more likely to be fertile” (p. 15). Thus, when Nemerov recounts at the end of the poem the answer that a “mystical lady” is given by her “Savior” (24-25) when she...