[In the following review of The Blue Swallows, Hecht declares Nemerov's poetry to be worthy of a major literary award.]

“SMALL MOMENT”

ISAIAH 54:7

Death is serious,
or else all things are serious
except death. A player who dies
automatically disqualifies
for the finals. If there were no death
nothing could be taken seriously,
not truth, not beauty, but that is not
a situation which we need to face.
Men invented the gods, but they
discovered death; therefore, although
the skull is said to grin, the flesh
is serious, and frowns, for the world
is not a stage. And the gay spirit, gone
through wisdom to absurdity,
welcomes the light that shudders in the leaves
in all weathers and at any season
since love, the pure, unique, and useless virtue,
climbs in the stalk and concentrates this dust
until it takes the light and shines
with the fat blood of death. So men say
that flowers light the sun, and so also
when Theseus fought Antiope,
the battlefield became a marriage bed.
When you have known how this may be
you have already lived forever,
forsaken once in a small moment,
but gathered with great mercies after.

“Small Moment” is from Howard Nemerov's new book [The Blue Swallows]; there is no other living poet I can think of capable of conveying with the same ease the sad, majestic, Lucretian austerity of these lines, the utter lack of concession, the pure indifference to what might pass for consolation. And the final lines are a characteristic puzzle; they are borrowed from the Lord's promise to His people: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.” The poem, therefore, may constitute an ironic commentary on the biblical passage, but it may also be, without irony, an interpretation of it, saying, in effect, this is the way, and the only way, those lines are properly to be understood. The irony then becomes a dramatic irony—what has been promised is brought to pass, but not in the manner that was expected.

This poem is from Nemerov's seventh book of poems, and there is nothing on the dust jacket to indicate he has ever been awarded a major prize. If this is true, it is shocking, for he continues to be one of the very best poets writing in English. His poems are not normally marked by the extreme severity of the one above; but I chose it anyway because it seemed to me absolutely awesome. More commonly his poems are compassionate, witty, and immensely civilized. This last word is not now regarded as a kindly one to use about a poet. When a reviewer employs it, usually he is coming to a covert understanding and confederation with the reader by signifying that there is something perhaps effete or less than red-blooded about the poet; and throwing his arm casually about the reader's shoulder, in the manner of a friendly Herman Goering, he is hinting, with a sly wink, that when the word “civilized” comes up, he and his buddy will have their Lügers ready. I hasten to say that I mean nothing of this sort. I mean rather that Nemerov in his poetry shows himself to be clear-headed, unillusioned and affectionate; wry, critical, often funny, and just as often deeply moving. Which is to say that he presents us with a highly intelligent and flexible viewpoint which is busily inspecting what is constantly passing for “civilization” right before our eyes. And there is not much that escapes notice. There is scarcely another poet who can show us so well how futile and ridiculous we are. I trust that the proper, and somewhat negligent, Foundations and Prize Committees will take due notice of this important book.