U.S. Consultant in Poetry, 1963-1964
U.S. Poet Laureate, 1988-1990
Howard Nemerov was born in New York City in 1920. He was the author of 21 poetry collections, including The Image and the Law (1947) and The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (1977), which won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize. He also published several books of prose. Nemerov received fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and was the recipient of the National Medal of the Arts. He served two terms as the nation’s official poet (from 1963-64 as Consultant in Poetry, and from 1988-1990 as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry) and in 1976 was appointed a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Nemerov was the first to receive the Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry from the Sewanee Review and was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1990. Throughout World War II, he served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian unit of the U.S. Army Air Force, eventually earning the rank of first lieutenant. From 1946-1948 he taught literature to World War II veterans at Hamilton College in New York. For a little more than 40 years he continued his teaching career at Bennington College, Brandeis University, and Washington University in St. Louis where he was the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence for more than 20 years. Howard Nemerov died in 1991.
Audio Recordings with Howard Nemerov
- Howard Nemerov reading his poems in the Coolidge Auditorium, May 11, 1964
- Consultants’ reunion readings by thirteen Consultants in Poetry in the Coolidge Auditorium, March 6, 1978
- As part of Poetry in English at the Library of Congress, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Howard Nemerov reading his poems in the Coolidge Auditorium, Oct. 3, 1988
- Howard Nemerov reading his poems in the Montpelier Room, May 3, 1990