The Next Room of the Dream

This collection has metaphysical attributes. When the Etruscan Warrior at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was declared a fraud, Nemerov wrote a poem. Howard Nemerov is the brother of Diane Arbus, the celebrated photographer of freaks. One is particularly reminded of this in poems about Santa Claus and the infant, Jesus, and department store mannequins, since department stores had a place in the family background, and in a poem about a picture. Nemerov's eye for the arresting scene is everywhere evident. Rhymes and half-rhymes abound in the selections, creating a musical effect. Nemerov writes that Vermeer, interested in light, has a modesty that is seductive. A late nature poet peeled the landscape back to show it was a story. Two dramas, ENDO and CAIN, appear in the collection. Abel feels Cain doesn't accept life as it is.