Warmed by Love

by Leonard Nimoy

Genres: Poetry, Star Trek

157 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1983

About the author

Jewish-American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer.

He was best known for playing the character of Spock on Star Trek, an American television series that ran for three seasons from 1966 to 1969, in addition to several movie sequels.

Reviews

[Brent Legault · Rating 1 out of 5]

The publisher of Warmed By Love (Blue Mountain Press, of Boulder, Colorado. Anybody know if they're still around? Because I've got a beauty of a book I'd like published and well, my acting career isn't what it used to be. . .) must have also published greeting cards, the kind of greeting cards I have never bought but used to receive now and then from grandmothers and serious aunts.

The (cough, cough) poetry not only reads like these greeting cards (When I see/The sorrows of the world/Leaning heavy/On your shoulders/I wish they were/On mine instead/Because/I care about you.) but it looks like it as well. There are no sunset-silhouetted shoulder-clasping beach-walkers or soft-lit hand-holding lovers in a field of tall grass but that's only because it would've been too expensive to print in 1983. Instead, we get crayon smears of color on nearly every page. When Nimoy talks of sunsets (which he often does) we get a crayon-smeared sun. When he talks of Nature (ditto) we get a crayon-smeared flower or tree or butterfly. Only the beautiful things, it seems, are to be warmed by love. This is poetry as Self Help, as Sensitive Man, and therefore it is just a product of its time, like Love Is. . . and Ziggy.

It would be easy, so easy to eviscerate this book. But that would be cruel. And unnecessary. And I've probably already been mean enough. So instead, I'll leave you with some words from the man himself. Did I say man? I meant, Spaceman:

Rocket ships are exciting
But so are roses on a birthday

Computers are exciting
But so is a sunset

And logic will never replace love

Sometimes I wonder where I belong
In the future or in the past

I guess I'm just an old-fashioned
Spaceman

I may not be the fastest
I may not be the tallest or the strongest

I may not be the best or the brightest

But one thing I can do better
Than anyone else. . .

That is to be me

Tell me, who can argue with that?

[Audrey]

LEONARD NIMOY'S POETRY SPITS IN THE FACE (with very warm, loving tongue-y spittle) OF YOUR STAR RATINGS.

Here is a random poem that you may find inside:

"Yes,
you are.

I understand because
I am too.

Each of us exists
separate and alone.

This is your Spring,
your precious time
to blossom,
to be.

Will you be with me?"

and another:

"My love is a garden
You are the sun
When you shine
On my garden
It grows
You feed it
With your smile
You warm it
With your heart
You bless it
With your being
When friends say,
My, you have a beautiful garden
I look at you,
and smile."

Oh, Mr. Spock!!!

[Katy German]

What I learned from this book: that effort is not, in every instance, enough.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Leonard Nimoy. I found this book at an estate sale where I also picked up a plush Mr Spock doll. I have run in countless 5K races in OS Star Fleet uniform.

But I should have known when I saw Blue Mountain was the publisher of this book. I remember the treacly greeting cards they used to sell awash in pastel watercolors in the 80’s and 90’s. I am ashamed I bought them for a boyfriend or two back in the day.

Even the few references to his alter ego, (And logic will never replace love… I guess I’m just an old fashioned spaceman), cannot save this book from being the most greeting card 70’s soft rock lyrics collection of poetry I’ve read in a long time. The flap calls Mr Nimoy “one of the best poets around.” Actor? Yes. Human Being? Yes. Poet? No.

[C Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

As poetry, honestly, this is probably not a four star text. However, my love and respect for Leonard Nimoy allowed me to approach his book more humanely, as a collection of verses that reveal and explore a gentle, honest soul. If that's not a wonderful, effective outcome of poetry, then I don't know what is.

[Benjamin Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

If complexity is something that you value in poetry, this book is not going to provide it. I believe this was published when Nimoy would have been around 50, and I'm guessing it was his fame that got this book published at all. The love message comes across very earnestly, but there's nothing to the poems, no reason to think about them again once you've finished reading them. The "old fashioned spaceman" one that's reprinted on the back cover is probably the best of the lot, but it offers little more than half clever juxtaposition.
I read some of the book to my wife, and she laughed, said they sounded like the sort of thing middle schoolers would write. I can't disagree. Still, it was glorious in the cheesiest way possible.

[Briana Grenert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't like poetry. When my friend first gave me this, I was touched but skeptical: I love Star Trek and all things Nimoy, but poetry??? But I was still very happy to have been gifted it and promptly read it.
I was surprised: I enjoyed it quite a bit. I feel like (probably irrationally) I know Nimoy a lot better. It was fun to read, and quick.

[Brian Dunkel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leonard Nimoy writes poetry. The complexity of my love for this book defies description.

[John Yelverton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really enjoyable work of poetry by a true renaissance man.