Howard Nemerov

Howard Nemerov (February 29, 1920 ’Ŭ July 5, 1991) was appointed twice as the Poet Laureate of the United States. A graduate of Harvard, he served as a pilot in World War II and flew missions over the North Sea. He returned to become a ’źwriter of fictions in verse and prose’Ź and was widely praised for his originality, sardonic wit, insight into the human condition, and imagery. Nemerov was a teacher at Washington University in St. Louis where he was a Distinguished Professor of English and Poet in Residence from 1969 until his death in 1991. He received many honors, including the National Medal of Arts, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Howard Nemorov addressed the student delegates at the 1989 Achievement Summit in San Francisco while he was serving a second term as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.