John Frederick Nims
John Frederick Nims Poems
My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing
...
Beside the rivers of the midnight town
Where four-foot couples love and paupers drown,
Shots of quick hell we took, our final kiss,
...
Crude seeing’s all our joy: could we discern
The cold dark infinite vast where atoms burn
—Lone suns—in flesh, our treasure and our play,
...
Not knowing in what season this again
Not knowing when again the arms outyearning
Nor the flung smile in eyes not knowing when
...
This seablue fir that rode the mountain storm
Is swaddled here in splints of tin to die.
Sofas around in chubby velvet swarm;
...
If what began (look far and wide) will end:
This lava globe huddle and freeze, its core
...
It’s brief and bright, dear children; bright and brief.
Delight’s the lightning; the long thunder’s grief.
...
We had a city also. Hand in hand
Wandered happy as travellers our own land.
Murmured in turn the hearsay of each stone
...
Always, he woke in those days
With a sense of treasure,
His heart a gayer glow
Than his window grand with sun,
...
If you could come on the late train for
The same walk
Or a hushed talk by the fireplace
...
Through salt marsh, grassy channel where the shark's
A rumor &mdash lean, alongside &mdash rides out boat;
...
John Frederick Nims Biography
John Frederick Nims was an American poet and academic. Life He graduated from DePaul University, University of Notre Dame with an M.A., and from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in 1945. He published reviews of the works by Robert Lowell and W. S. Merwin. He taught English at Harvard University, the University of Florence, the University of Toronto, Williams College and the University of Missouri. He was editor of Poetry magazine from 1978 to 1984. The John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize, for poetry translation, is awarded by the Poetry Foundation. Awards American Academy of Arts and Letters grant National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities grant Institute of the Humanities fellowship 1982 Academy of American Poets fellowship 1986 Guggenheim Fellowship 1991 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry. 1993 O.B. Hardison Prize)
The Best Poem Of John Frederick Nims
Love Poem
My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing
Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.
Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before apopleptic streetcars—
Misfit in any space. And never on time.
A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease;
In traffic of wit expertly maneuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.
Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gaily in love's unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float.
Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses—
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.
Anonymous submission.
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