Howard Nemerov's The War In The Air

Howard Nemerov was born into a wealthy family on March 1, 1920. Due to his parent’s fortune, he was able to receive excellent education in exclusive private schools such as Fieldston Preparatory School. Later in his educational journey, Nemerov attended Harvard University. While Nemerov attended the prestigious university, he started writing his poems. When he was sixty-eight years old, Nemerov was named the United States poet laureate from 1988 to 1990. One of the factors that enabled him to get appointed to this rank was his ability to write poetry that “managed to engage the reader’s mind without becoming academic” (Foundation 1). Age and prior experience with poetry were not necessary in order to comprehend and interact with Nemerov’s works. When writing his poems, Nemerov incorporated the same central theme into multiple of his poems. For most of his works, the theme in his poems is that pessimistic people believe they are forced to live; therefore, they are depressed.
Nemerov chose to become a poet against his father’s will. Ever since he was a child, he …show more content…
When talking about burial ceremonies, Nemerov mentions that “Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,” (Nemerov “The War in the Air” 5-6). The ghosts are so glad to be freed from their mortal bodies that they immediately retreat to the afterlife instead of lingering in the mortal world. Their physical body was the chain that kept them tied to this world, but when they died, they were not forced to live anymore, so they could escape the state of depression. In this poem, Nemerov expresses his “ultimate sadness at the tragic position of humanity in the universe.” (Galileo 3). He believes that human beings were misplaced on the Earth, which is why souls instantaneously float to the afterlife instead of lingering on