Complete Prose of Marianne Moore

by Marianne Moore, Patricia C. Willis (Editor)

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Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction

724 pages, Paperback

Published January 26, 1987

About the author

Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American Modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit.

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could never, nor ever would I want to, read this book from beginning to end. I open it on occasion to relish the pleasures of manner as destiny, of precision as ecstasy. Moore is stalwart in the true expression of her idiosyncratic thought:

"To write unemotionally of this book is to do it injustice. In depth of presentation it is the longed-for contrast to historical unveracity on the screen."

What about this doozy?

"Poetry is an unintelligible unmistakable vernacular like the language of the animals--a system of communication whereby a fox with a turkey too heavy for it to carry, reappears shortly with another fox to share the booty, and Wallace Stevens is a practiced hand at this kind of open cypher."

That may be the best worst sentence--which is to say, the most wonderful sentence--I have ever read.

I'm not sure I've ever finished a single piece in this book. I fall enthralled with the serpentine syntax and multiple implications of each merciless sentence. And then I put down the book until I need another dose of razzle-dazzle.

Alas, this volume does not include Moore's famous letters to the Ford Motor Company, in which they asked her help in naming a car (eventually, The Edsel -- not Moore's name). For that gem you need The Marianne Moore Reader.

[Elizabeth]

different picture good condition
hardcover with dustjacket
edited by and with intro by Patricia C Willis