POETRY CHRONICLE
and I think there is truth in the impression. On the other hand, one
has the impression here and there in reading through Nemerov's
The
Image and the Law
that the Auden climate has driven technical accom–
plishment straight to zero, besides encouraging the Flat to take us over
altogether; for instance, the third of five Nemerov stanzas weirdly
crawls as follows:
The citizen reads the Sunday papers.
He thanks his God he is not
In Posnan or Alle'nstein or Belgrade.
He is, for example, in Chicago.
The world situation is terrible,
The famine a terrible thing.
(What matters is, not that the poet has done this badly, but that he
supposes it the thing to do at all.) And I think there is truth in this
impression also. Well? Are we to say merely that Ciardi is more ex–
perienced than Nemerov? He is; but this is hardly more relevant to
the dilemma (if a hat-rack can write so well, why not Nemerov?) than
is the fact that Auden is himself a virtuoso (since for years he concealed
his virtuosity from the rank and file of his followers) . The explanation
is that Ciardi has barely a tithe of Nemerov's talent. That is, the Climate
at this date resembles somewhat the current musical scene, which is
good for union members but bad for artists.
I had better prove at once that Nemerov is an artist.
For W. Who Commanded Well
You try to fix your mind upon his death,
Which seemed it might, somehow, be relevant
To something you once thought, or did, or might
Imagin e yourself thinking, doi'T!g. When?
It was, once, the most possible of dreams:
The hero acted it, philosophers
Could safely recommend it to the young;
It was acceptable, a theme for song.
And it was wrong? Daily the press commends
A rationed greed, the radio denies
That war is right, or wrong, or serious:
And money is being made, and the wheels go round,
And death is paying for itself : ood so
It does not seem that anything was lost.
It would be hard to claim that this unemphatic and thoughtful poem
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