John Frederick Nims and His "Love Poem" Analyzed

Introduction

John Frederick Nims was a poet who was both prolific — he published eight books of poetry — and well-regarded, earning such awards as the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. The volume of poetry one publishes and the awards one receives are not marks of greatness alone; the quality of the poetry matters most. One might reasonably assume that a poet who is allowed to publish a great deal and receives grants and fellowships to continue writing is doing something right, but that does not necessarily mean readers will enjoy the work. Nims could have been someone who was critically, but not popularly, acclaimed — yet this was not the case. John Frederick Nims was a poet enjoyed by all those who read his work, and he wrote several poems still recognized as exemplary. One of these is simply titled "Love Poem." Nims's history, selections from his body of work, and a close analysis of "Love Poem" are all necessary to understand who this poet was and the value he contributed to American literature.

Not much biographical detail is recorded about Nims beyond the fact that he was born in 1913, wrote poetry, and won several awards. There was, however, one additional accomplishment for which he was noted before his death in 1999: Nims committed himself to being a poet-educator. He earned a PhD and went on to teach at some of the most prestigious universities in the world. He also served as chief editor of Poetry magazine from 1978 to 1984. His greatest achievement may have been his sustained effort to spread his love of poetry to others.

Nims was both a writer of original poetry and a translator of other poets' work. He produced eight original collections of poetry and translated five others. These efforts reflect the extraordinary amount of time Nims devoted to poetry, and they are a large part of why he is regarded as one of the great American poets.

Biography and Career

His translated works include such titles as Sappho to Valery: Poems in Translation, The Complete Poems of Michelangelo, and The Poems of St. John of the Cross. In Sappho to Valery, Nims sought to demonstrate the breadth of poetic art across time, including writers such as Dante and Goethe alongside older works such as a piece attributed to Plato (Nims 1971). Michelangelo was the complete Renaissance man, dabbling in many different artistic forms. His poetry was a precursor to the Romantics in that it was written with deep emotion and frequently centered on love; however, poems about his experiences as a famous artist — such as "Fame Keeps the Epitaphs Where They Lie" — are particularly interesting for their autobiographical content (Nims 1998). The collected writings of St. John of the Cross carry a strongly religious flavor, yet poems such as "The Lucky Days" reveal dimensions of his outlook beyond religion (Nims 1979).

Nims's own original works were regarded as exemplary contributions to the American tradition. In The Six-Cornered Snowflake and Other Poems, he introduced a new form: a structure shaped like the Star of David, within which the poem was composed. There were no rhyming patterns or prescribed line numbers, but the creativity of a mind always searching for something new is unmistakable (Nims 1983). His earliest works are gathered in Selected Poems from 1944, the first anthology in which "Love Poem" was introduced to the general public (Nims 1944). As with many of the poems in that collection, "Love Poem" had first appeared in Poetry magazine before being reprinted in the anthology.

Nims's Body of Work

The title is distracting because it puts an image into a reader's head that the poem does not fulfill. When someone sees the words "love poem," they are probably expecting something like a sonnet from Shakespeare, or something melancholy and longing from Edna St. Vincent Millay. This poem is neither of those things; it is more of a pleasant surprise because it does not adhere to the traditional conventions of the love poem.

The poem is arranged in six stanzas that take the reader through the complex feelings the poet holds for his "dear." He leaves the reader with the impression that despite the exasperation he feels with her, he has such deep devotion to her that her other traits pale in comparison — yet he still feels the need to explain why he loves so completely someone who can also drive him to distraction.

The first stanza opens the antithetical message by using words describing her "clumsiness," which causes everything she touches to become a small disaster. The woman described seems never to have learned how to approach things gracefully, or she is so absorbed in her own thoughts that she does not pay attention to more mundane matters. She cannot handle vases, china, or linen (Nims 1944) without making a disaster of them. This suggests she is either indifferent to such temporal objects or possesses an innate clumsiness she has simply never overcome. Grace is not among her gifts, and it seems she has come to terms with that — as has the poet.

Yet she is not clumsy in every respect. She is able to make the "ill-at-ease" feel comfortable and cares for those who have become unsteady from drink (Nims 1944). The clumsiness disappears in the second stanza because Nims wants the reader to understand that this woman is not a total disaster. She is masterful in the situations that matter most and possesses all the mercy that any wayward person could desire.

Her clumsy side reasserts itself in the third stanza: she is a "taxi driver's terror" and is seen "leaping before apoplectic street cars" (Nims 1944). She is apparently unconcerned with the way she drives or where she walks. The poet leads the reader to believe that there is an inherent inattentiveness in her that she has no wish to correct, because correcting it would distract her mind from more important things.

Conclusion

Nims, John F. Selected Poems. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1944. Print.