The Iron Pastoral: Poems

86 pp. Author's first book of verse. John Frederick Nims (November 20, 1913 in Muskegon, Michigan - January 13, 1999 in Chicago, Illinois) was an American poet and academic. From the jacket: "Nims writes with wit and relish, and penetrating irony of many aspects of contemporary life, particularly of existence in today's large cities. He is intensely aware of the suffering, acknowledged and unacknowledged, in our metropolitan centers, and the shallowness of the pleasures. Hence his attention to the life of penny arcades, poolrooms, movies, Els, and lunchrooms, and his eye for similar discordant fragments of life - no better integrated though less conspicuous - in the holiday crowds on beaches, at football games, and on college campuses... Underneath his sharpest satire and his harshest criticism lies a passionate concern for the dignity of the human spirit."