New book from POETRY SALZBURG:

Rodney Stenning Edgecombe: A READER'S GUIDE TO THE POETRY OF HOWARD NEMEROV
(ISBN: 3-901993-07-X), 285 pp., £19.95 + 50p p&p, ATS 400 + 10 p&p; US$
29.95 + 1 p&p.
 

Born in 1920, HOWARD NEMEROV became one of the great American writers of
the mid-20th century. Although Nemerov is known foremost for his many
poems, during his career he also distinguished himself as a writer of short
stories, novels, essays, and criticism.

A review in The Nation characterized him thusly: "Nemerov's virtues are all
in fact unfashionable ones for our time: vivid intelligence, an irreverent
sense of humor, a mastery of formal verse, an awareness of mystery."

At the time of his death in 1991 Howard Nemerov had been the recipient of
numerous literary awards and prizes, including the National Book Award and
the Pulitzer Prize. He was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States in 1988.

RODNEY STENNING EDGECOMBE, a scholar who has taught at the University of
Cape Town in South Africa for many years, is one of the most versatile
critics of this era. He has done productive work on subjects ranging from
classical ballet to the poetry of Lee Hunt. He also wrote a book about the
poetry of the Oxford Movement. (J. H. Newman, John Keble).
 

>From Edgecombe's "Prologue":

"I have used Nemerov's concern with the image and the law as a radial
center for this study, hoping in some measure to offset the sequential plod
of my reader's guide format. It is, after all, as much a unifying factor in
the first collection as in the last. Without especially wanting to, Nemerov
seems to have realized an important ideal of the rhetors, that of marrying
consistency with variousness: Varius sis et tamen idem. Answering his own
question, "Do you see your work as having essentially changed in character
or style since you began?" Nemerov replied, "if character or attitude can
be distinguished from style in a technical sense, there has perhaps been
not so much change."

In taking the reader through the poetry, I have tried to be as neutral as
possible, even when the poet's values have clashed with my own. There are
occasions, however - for example, the uncharitable attack on MacLeish in
"Ars Poetica" - when I have raised my voice in protest at the poet's
"orneriness" (to borrow a term from Phoebe Pettingell). I have likewise
generally avoided evaluative comments, keeping back my thoughts on
Nemerov's place in the canon until the epilogue. Even so, I hope I shall be
forgiven the odd sigh at having had to comment on the endless sassy
"gnomes." My format has obliged me to cover many little poems (in both
senses of that adjective) that I should prefer to have passed over.

I have had many distinguished pre-decessors in the field. It says a great
deal for Peter Meinke's pioneering booklet that it has not dated over the
past twenty-eight years. Julia Bartholomay has provided a nuanced and
far-reaching account of Nemerov's image clusters and the themes to which
they attach, and William Mills and Donna Potts have both cast light on the
central tenets of his epistemology, the former by tracing the influence of
Heidegger, the latter by stressing the importance of Owen Barfield. Then
there is Ross Labrie's fine overview of the poetry, which corrected my
misinterpretations of "Zalmoxis"  and "Quaerendo Invenietis". (It is only
right that I point to those parts of my face where the egg would have
lodged!)"



I would like to order … copies of Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, A Reader's
Guide to the Poetry of Howard Nemerov, £19.95 + 50p p&p (ATS 400 + 10 p&p;
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A-5020 Salzburg, AUSTRIA




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