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Adorable images,

Plaster of Paris

Lilies of the field,

You are not alive, therefore

Pathos will be out of place.

But I have learned

A strange fact about your fate,

And it is this:

After you go out of fashion

Beneath your many fashions,

Or when your elbows and knees

Have been bruised powdery white,

So that you are no good to anybody—

They will take away your gowns,

Your sables and bathing suits,

Leaving exposed before all men

Your inaccessible bellies

And pointless nubilities.

Movers will come by night

And load you all into trucks

And take you away to the Camps,

Where soldiers, or the State Police,

Will use you as targets

For small-arms practice,

Leading me to inquire,

Since pathos is out of place,

What it is that they are practicing.

November 1961

“To the Mannequins” from The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov. Reprinted by per- mission of University of Chicago Press.

Source: Poetry (April 2012).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of Poetry magazine

• “Still Do I Keep My Look, My Identity...”
  by Gwendolyn Brooks
• Work
  by Nate Klug
• Heaven Is Not Verbose: A Notebook
  by Vera Pavlova

• April 2012 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
• About Poetry magazine
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More about this poem

Biography

Howard Nemerov was a highly acclaimed poet often cited for the range of his capabilities and subject matter, "from the profound to the poignant to the comic," James Billington remarked in his frequently quoted announcement of Nemerov's appointment to the post of United States poet laureate. A distinguished professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 1969 to 1990, Nemerov wrote poetry and fiction that managed to engage . . .

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by Howard Nemerov

• A Day on the Big Branch
• Gyroscope
• I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
• Learning the Trees
• Life Cycle of Common Man

• More poems by Howard Nemerov (25 poems)
  • Magnitudes
  • Money
  • Political Reflection
  • Storm Windows
  • The Author to His Body on Their Fifteenth Birthday, 29 ii 80
  • The Brief Journey West
  • The Consent
  • The Dependencies
  • The Goose Fish
  • The Icehouse in Summer
  • The Murder of William Remington
  • The Painter Dreaming in the Scholar’s House
  • The Town Dump
  • The Vacuum
  • The View from an Attic Window
  • The War in the Air
  • To D-, Dead by Her Own Hand
  • To David, About His Education
  • Writing
  • Young Woman

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Social Commentaries, War & Conflict

Poetic Terms Free Verse

If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.

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Related

Audio

• Poetry Off the Shelf: Cruel, Cruel Summer
• Poem of the Day: A Day on the Big Branch
• Poem of the Day: The Goose Fish
• Essential American Poets: Howard Nemerov: Essential American Poets
• Poem of the Day: The Icehouse in Summer
• Poem of the Day: Life Cycle of Common Man
• Poem of the Day: The Murder of William Remington
• Poem of the Day: Storm Windows
• Poem of the Day: The Town Dump

Articles

• Finding Again the World by Eleanor Wilner

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