John Frederick Nims (1913-1999) was the author of eight collections of poetry, including The Six-Cornered Snowflake, Zany in Denim, and Knowledge of the Evening. He also translated several books of verse, most recently The Complete Poems of Michelangelo, and wrote the highly acclaimed Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry. Long affiliated with the magazine Poetry, he was its editor from 1978 to 1984, and he taught at many distinguished universities and workshops in America and abroad. Among the numerous honors he received for his work are the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, the Aiken-Taylor Award, the O. B. Hardison Award, and the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize.
