[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 asks about the acorn in his hand, the reader is to assume that Nemerov is indeed thankful for his early religious practices. The “Savior” claims that the acorn “is in a manner everything that is made” (27). Similarly, Nemerov's Jewish background contained what was necessary for him to develop into an artist. The celebration of Yom Kippur has brought out in Nemerov an appreciation of the impact his religion has had on him.

Nemerov relies on biblical images; he has “acknowledged that the stories of the Old Testament had a profound effect on him in his youth” (Labrie, p. 15). In the poem, Nemerov relies on imagery specifically from the Garden of Eden. Just as the acorn is the fruit of the oak tree, so is the apple the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in Eden. The acorn (or Nemerov) is described as “fallen”; the events in Eden are said to have been the Fall of man. Just as Adam and Eve acquire knowledge once they have eaten the forbidden fruit, Nemerov acquired knowledge after he fell from his faith.

Nemerov claims in lines 6-8 of the poem that when he was young he believed an acorn “had an oak inside, / The way some tribes believe that every man / Has a homunculus inside his head.” Nemerov's views of nature and man have changed as he has become older and more educated. He describes the process by saying that “matter was going out / And energy coming in” (9-10). The poet has realized that there is no “oak” or physical “matter” within the acorn, only the “energy” needed to grow. Identically, there is no tangible “homunculus” inside men's heads, only intangible thoughts and ideas.

According to Labrie, it is at this point in the poem that Nemerov expresses his belief that “formal religion is particularly vulnerable in pretending to know about the real world, rather than submitting to the inspired moment in wonder and acknowledged ignorance” (22). In the poem Nemerov states that “energy / Wasn't the last word either, the last word / Is […] The Word” (lines 10-12). That is, although science for Nemerov explains both the growth and reproduction of the oak and of man, those who taught Nemerov early in his life about the Jewish faith rejected scientific explanations for biblical ones. Nemerov views such a rejection of science as ignorance. The critic William Mills believes that with “Acorn, Yom Kippur,” Nemerov has adopted the idea that knowledge is the subject himself involved in the world (p. 8).

Nemerov further relies on the Bible for his image, in line 16, of the oak over “great stretches of time” as well as his description of the cyclical process of death and renewal. Labrie asserts that Nemerov's “use of the mythic tale […] hold[s] to the continuum of experience, presenting life as a seamless and ritualistically repetitive dream […] rather than focusing on beginnings and endings” (p. 24). Nemerov tells us in the poem that “Inside its dreaming head the acorn has / Complete instructions for making an oak” (13-14), and the oak, instructions “in the making of acorns / And so forth and so on, world without end” (21-22). This reveals, according to Labrie, Nemerov's belief that “myths are prime, archetypal patterns of human experience” (240). Nemerov simultaneously recognizes that his own religious background has provided him with knowledge of such archetypal stories as sources for imagery within his poetry.

For Nemerov, “the purpose of metaphor is to try to find expression for the inexpressible.” That is, “a metaphor […] involve[s] a relationship between […] a known and an unknown thing” (Labrie 28). In his poem Nemerov uses the relationship between the acorn and the white oak as a metaphor for the relationship between himself and God. It is important to note that throughout the poem, Nemerov uses the specific (and, on one occasion, capitalized and italicized) white oak differently than he does the generalized oak. The white oak symbolizes God, just as the generic oak is a symbol of the grown man, whom God created in his own image. Nemerov has strayed from his God, just as the acorn has fallen from the white oak. Nemerov also implies that he is including himself in the acorns that have “Translat[ed] the sacred book of the white oak / With its thousands of annual leaves and their footnotes” (lines 18-19). Nemerov admits that he is no longer a part of organized religion but reminds the reader that he was once a part of the “annual” rituals that are central to the Jewish faith. There is a direct parallel, then, between the ties of the acorn to the white oak, and the ties of Nemerov to his God.

In addition, metaphor in Nemerov's poem unifies the split that Nemerov claims occurred between “matter” and “energy,” or religiosity and science. Mills states that the “distinction between ‘scientific’ knowledge and ‘another’ kind of knowledge about particular things” mirrors a similar “divorce […] between the knowing subject and the world outside him” (p. 7). Metaphor in this particular poem “paradisiacally overcomes not only the separateness of things, of things and the mind, but strives for a reconciliation between time and eternity” (Labrie 28). The metaphorical use of the acorn and the white oak overcomes the separation between the two physical objects in nature and the separation between Nemerov and his God. Labrie states that essentially, in “Acorn,” Nemerov expresses a view of the “religious nature of art”; he believes that art, specifically poetry, “illuminates the inner radiance of objects interfused with mind and thereby generates and celebrates the feeling of being itself” (Labrie 28).

The irony, here, is that Nemerov is using religious wording to discuss his lack of faith. Although he respects and “upholds his Jewishness” (Labrie 15), he advocates something more than “a single minded thought” (“Acorn” line 4). Nemerov tests himself in “Acorn, Yom Kippur” by using a small occurrence to make sense of the larger issue of his own religious standings.

Works Cited

Labrie, Ross. Howard Nemerov. Boston: Twayne, 1980.

Nemerov, Howard. Trying Conclusions: New and Selected Poems, 1961-1991. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.

Mills, William. The Stillness in Moving Things: The World of Howard Nemerov. Memphis: Memphis State UP, 1975.