John Frederick Nims > Quotes

“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.”
― John Frederick Nims

“Some people imagine that rhyme interferes with the rational processes of thought by obliging us to distort what we originally had in mind. But are rational processes so important? In many of us, even in poets, they can be dull and predictable. An interruption, a few detours and unexpected turns, might make a trip with them less routine. The necessity of finding a rhyme may jolt the mind out of its ruts, force it to turn wildly across the fields in some more exhilarating direction. Force it out of the world of reason into the world of mystery, magic, and imagination, in which relationships between sounds may be as exciting as a Great Idea.”
― John Frederick Nims and David Mason

“It’s brief and bright, dear children; bright and brief.
Delight’s the lightning; the long thunder’s grief.

— John Frederick Nims, “Days of Our Years,” Selected Poems (The University of Chicago Press, 1982)”
― John Frederick Nims, Selected Poems