Poems

by Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore's first edition of poetry published in 1921 by The Egoist Press. Includes active table of contents, correct spacing/breaks, and automatic (poetic) indentation for any size frame or font.

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PEDANTIC LITERALIST
TO A STEAM ROLLER
DILIGENCE IS TO MAGIC AS PROGRESS IS TO FLIGHT
THOSE VARIOUS SCALPELS
FEED ME, ALSO, RIVER GOD,
TO WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ON TAGORE
HE MADE THIS SCREEN
TALISMAN
BLACK EARTH
"HE WROTE THE HISTORY BOOK," IT SAID
YOU ARE LIKE THE REALISTIC PRODUCT OF AN IDEALISTIC SEARCH FOR GOLD AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW
REINFORCEMENTS
ROSES ONLY
IN THIS AGE OF HARD TRYING NONCHALANCE IS GOOD, AND
THE FISH
MY APISH COUSINS
WHEN I BUY PICTURES
PICKING AND CHOOSING
ENGLAND
DOCK RATS
RADICAL
POETRY
IN THE DAYS OF PRISMATIC COLOR
IS YOUR TOWN NINEVEH?

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Americana, Classics, American, 20th Century, The United States Of America

40 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 1921

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

[Leanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can tell this is a poet I am going to return to, maybe out of sheer enjoyment rather than to learn from. This summer I am trying to experiment with how I read--I think sometimes I am too quick to judge. So I am trying to spend more time with texts and to push past initial impressions, simply because upon first impressions, I tend to dislike large swaths of poetry, and that can get frustrating and be limiting.

Which is all to say, at first read, I found Moore very difficult and with a predeliction for overly fussy diction and syntax. She also seemed didactic, and her so-called "wit" seemed rather smug and moralistic. In general, I found her old-fashioned, obscure, very lacy, calling too much attention to the appearance of her poems and their strange architechture and sounds.

But. I stuck with her. I still don't understand her very well, but the very weirdness of her language, and its intricacy, and the steel craftsmanship--I think maybe I could see Moore's poems as like diamonds, many many facets, all smoothly cut and polished, and maybe not my favorite gem but certainly awe-inspiring, mysterious, and meaningful.

Favorites: "Poetry" (how can you not love that first line--"I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle"), "Silence" (like "Poetry," this is one of her widely anthologized; a teacher once remarked that a poet's most anthologized are her most simple, which this certainly demonstrates, but still, another amazing beginning quote); "An Octopus" (man, is this bizzare. On the first several reads, I thought it was about a real octopus, which made it that much more bizzare. Now I think the octopus is actually some sort of glacier. So many quotations in this poem!); "To a Snail" (love that last line about "the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn"); "Nine Nectarines;" "The Pangolin" (reminded me a bit of Bishop's "Armadillo." Lines I love: "...this ant-and stone-swallowing uninjurable / artichoke which simpletons thought a living fable / whom the stones had nourished, whereas ants had done / so..." Perhaps my favorite series of lines in this book--the strangeness of how the pangolin is described (ant and stone swallowing uninjurable artichoke! and yet, how accurate, for all this alien imagery!), the awesome sounds, the mythical quality of this creature. Also I like "Nevertheless" (those last two stanzas: "The weak overcomes its / menace, the strong over-/comes itself. What is there // like fortitude! What sap / went through that little thread / to make the cherry red!" What an image of a cherry, and what an idea.) I'm a fan of "Elephants" as well.

Bottom line--I feel like I just barely have touched the surface of Moore, but I am glad to be introduced to her. A much beloved teacher of mine once told me that she thought reading John Ashbery helps her loosen her writing muscles; he makes her take greater leaps and liberate herself. He didn't do that for me, but I feel like Moore might. She is so weird, yet so precise. She builds a lot of beauty in her complex poems. I'm not sure yet what I can learn from her, and I think I'll put her down for now--but maybe she can help loosen me up, and try new things? I wonder if ultimately it will be her craftsmanship in sound play--the alphabet seems such a glittering, hard thing in her hands, capable of being strung together in unheard-of combinations, but always with this flinty element that makes me see some sort of uber-sharp artistic eye beneath.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marianne Moore's poetry is steeped in the natural; she sometimes reminds me of Walt Whitman. Nature is to her a church, a library, a completely foreign world to the more subdued, concrete and truthless one that most people live in.
Her poems appear as grand, lavish stage productions, rooted in mythology, with wild and humming casts of animals, mythic and classical figures, set in a world that is free from the facade of civilization. Moore seems to observe human nature best when she views it free from the stultifying effects of modern civilized society.

What she sees is surprisingly basic. For all the grand movement and color of her poems, their themes are simple: love, pacifism and anti-militarism, honest admiration of nature. She is, at times, like a more literate hippie. Her technical craft is there, but it is of a loose and carefree kind: no set forms, just a repeated word or rhyme loosely binding the energy together. The simplicity of form and theme get everything else out of the way for the buzzing, spinning tone and imagery.

That simplicity exists in a tension with the ornateness of the tone which drives the poem, but can occasionally be frustrating. For all the work the reader does cracking through the shell of her style, and as energetic as that style is, the nut of insight is sometimes surprisingly, and disappointingly, small. But grand insights into human nature are not Moore's target; they are the side effects of a long and intense study of nature. I think, with Moore, you either have to lower your expectations, or get rid of them altogether.

Moore is not among my favorite poets, but I have the feeling that she wouldn't give a hang about that. She writes independently, not only of the strictures of formalism, but also of society's expectations. That's an admirable thing.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marianne Moore demands a great deal of her readers; much of her work is spare, austere and in many cases nearly impenetrable — although she seems to have mellowed somewhat in her later years. This is the work of a major intellect and there are a number of poems in this collection that are startlingly cogent and memorable. She is at her best when proclaiming a significant moral or ethical issue. For example:
Axiomatic
The sinful man
Who seeks to bury sin in sacred ground
Has surely found
That fiends surround him.
The sinless man
Who dares to publish truth has surely found
Though sins abound,
None may confound him.
And even more compelling:
What Are Years
What is our existence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt —
dumbly calling, deafly listening — that
is misfortune, even death,
encourages others
and in its defeat, stirs
the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.
So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
stays, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.
I find much to admire in Moore's work on an intellectual level. And yet, I find it difficult to feel comfortably "at home" in her poetry the way I do with some other poets that I could categorize as intellectuals (e.g. Anna Akhmatova, a contemporary of Moore or Wm Blake, of an earlier era).

[Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

Try and fail, try and fail. Some writers I just can get even a single word out of that I find even the least bit interesting or exciting. Add Marianne Moore to the list. Not a poem, or even a line of a poem, I found the least bit interesting or exciting. I loved Mina Loy, was lukewarm about Amy Lowell, but Marianne Moore is just dead to me. This is Goodreads, and this is my humble opinion.

[Melissa]

Eh, not for me. Couldn’t get into these poems.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moore was a savage editor of her own work, and insisted on collecting only what she considered the very best of her poems, often significantly revised over the years. Grace Schulman pulls back the curtain to let you see the earlier versions, in the chronological order in which they were written, along with many very fine poems that didn't pass muster with Moore. You get four versions of the famous "Poetry," for instance ("I, too, dislike it"): the 1919 original included in the body of the text, and the three variants Moore wrote over the next 40 years tucked helpfully in the Notes at the back.

The upshot is a much clearer sense of Moore's development and characteristic concerns. Every bit as formidable, she also becomes a little more human when you see the full range of her writing. Some of the false starts and minor pieces can often be more revealing than the Greatest Hits (though sometimes what Moore considered minor can be scary.) Now that Schulman's book is available as a Penguin paperback, I wonder how many of these lesser-known poems will eventually find their way into the standard anthologies.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first encounter with Marianne Moore. Her poetry is often challenging. It feels more literary than the other poetry books I've read recently. There are many allusions. They require thinking. I haven't been feeling well today, so maybe this wasn't the best choice of books. I'm exhausted.

At the same time, there are many lines that are beautiful. There are lines that capture truth, truer than true. Moore was clearly a scholar. She traveled. She experienced so many things and wrote about all types of experiences.

I didn't personally relate to these poems. Even so, I feel more educated. I'm also impressed by Moore's knowledge and use of language.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these poems are funny and all of them are clever.

[Connor Lougheed · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE POEMS OF MARIANNE MOORE - Marianne Moore (1900s): 4
I enjoy reading Marianne Moore’s work; but the majority of her poems simply elaborate on simple topics, many of them describing animals and nature and people. There isn't much to gather from these poems, not even technically (except for a few illuminated stand-outs): most are trivial sequential patterns. It breaks my heart to rate this so lowly because the pieces that do stand out are excellent.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marianne Moore is an idiosyncratic poet; I think her concerns and techniques aren't like those of other poets, and vice versa. I think that's part of why some people really don't think much of her, and other people totally adore her. I mostly put myself in that second category-- there were some years when I stayed away from her, but I'm pretty much back in her camp. And this book makes a really good case for Moore.

Among the things that this book, which includes SO MUCH material I'd never read before, taught me, is that Moore came on strong very early-- by the time the book reaches THE LITTLE MAGAZINES, there are gems most people have never seen every three or four pages, poems as inventive, distinctive, and surprising as any of Moore's more well-anthologized poems. There's a late run of quality, too, in the poems that just precede WW2 (here, that section is titled "Lyrics and Sequences"). After the war is underway, there are some good poems, poems that try to think seriously about what the war means, and what it means to root for a winner-- some of these poems are good, but there's also a strain there, to connect with people, that challenges Moore.

Shulman's notes are great-- of course I wanted her to hunt down every quote from the poems and gloss them for me, but that's not her goal here. What her notes do very well is trace where these poems appeared, in magazines and Moore's previous collections, and probably more importantly, reprinting, in large-enough-to-read type, the alternate versions of the poems that saw print.

The book also reprints the notes from Moore's "Complete Poems," which are helpful, and another window into Moore's unique persective.

Really, this book is a vital resource, full of many splendid treasures.

[Tyler · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of Marianne Moore's poetry is incredibly dense and hard to understand. With the help of a professor and a lot of group discussion I began to see recurring themes and ideas, but her poetry was tough to just read and enjoy, which I suppose is how she wanted it.

If you bother with these (I never would have gotten through all of them if it wasn't for class) read with a dictionary and google, she uses a lot of quotes and allusions that won't make a bit of sense otherwise.

I'm probably too vulgar and/or humble to "really appreciate" her poetry. I think the main problem is a difference in belief about writing. Moore thinks if the reader doesn't have to work to gain understanding than the writer is insulting the readers intelligence. I think if the reader can't understand whats been written the writer has already failed.

3/10

Poems I liked:
A Grave
Poetry
Elephants
To a Chameleon (chameleons occur a fair amount in Moore's work. This poem helped me open some doors in understanding)
In the Days or Prismatic Color (with professor help helped open some doors)
Spenser's Ireland "the greenest place I've never seen"

[Cheryl]

Wait, what? I read many of these, including those the blurb mentioned as special, and didn't 'get' them at all. How did she get on my to-read list? Maybe I should try a 'best of' instead of a 'complete' or maybe a 'for young readers'....

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry from early 20 th century. I was turned off when I read a poem about the Carlisle Indian school. Marianne Moore was a teacher there. My great great grandmother was a student.

[Siddiq Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the fiercest intellects of English-language literature in any era, and one of the most humourous.

As a master of technique, she harkens back to the English metaphysicals. Nobody had written a poem like "The Fish" since the 17th century, and nobody has done so at all convincingly since.

Demands many rereadings to reveal its treasures. The more limited and artificial structures of these rhymed poems, compared to her mature work, often lead to a significant sacrifice in the force of the content (which often feels strangely forced). It is clear why she dropped the rhyme schemes. Yet when she does succeed, which in this era tends to be mostly in her more strictly descriptive rather than reflective pieces, such as the abovementioned Fish, Black Earth, Talisman, Dock Rats, Radical (all nature poems of an utterly enchanting kind) -- she does so spectacularly. And of course, the autoreflexive Poetry is masterful.

[Aaron · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have never read a book that was so badly in need of useful notes, yet had such useless notes. Half these poems are completely impenetrable if you don't understand the context or the references, yet the notes rarely bother to provide this essential information. Moreover, the notes are not user-friendly. The notes are divided into two sections, Moore's notes and the editor's note. There is an editor's note to every poem, but most of these notes just give the date of publication if any. Moore's notes are occasionally helpful, but there is nothing to indicate whether Moore wrote a note on any given poem, and the notes are not in the same order in which the poems appear in the book.

To me, these poems already require a lot of effort for no real reward, and Schulman's notes make them even more difficult.

[Book busy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really perplexing stuff. The way Moore uses graphological spacing of her text alongside enjambment and a philosophical turn of phrase makes this poetry pretty inaccessible to me at a first glance. I'm desperate to analyse some of these for slightly longer when I get the chance. For now, this has been an interesting first look at her works.
From the edition of her poems that I read from Project Gutenberg (Egoist Press, 1921) , my favourite poems that really felt quite alien to me were:

-Those various scalpels
-Black Earth
-"He Wrote the History Book", It Said
-Roses Only
-My Apish Cousins
-England
-Radical

[Joseph M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favorite poet. Marianne Moore is one of those writers who explores the most subtle human feelings by using a very radically inventive syntax and style. Her poems are filled with references to religion, mythology, artists, and cultural figures of America at the time. Some of her poems are chocked full of this hodgepodge of references and you end up with an emotional "collage" of these disparate sources suggesting a common feeling. Other times her poems are deeply sensory and describe natural scenes metaphorically to convey subtle truths (like "The Fish").

Favorite poems:
The Fish
What Are Years (absolute favorite)
Half Deity
The Pangolin

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visible, invisible,
a fluctuating charm
an amber-tinctured amethyst
inhabits it, your arm
approaches and it opens
and it closes; you had meant
to catch it and it quivers;
you abandon your intent.
— ‘A Jelly-fish’

Have never properly read MM before (have only ever stumbled on and read her work in anthologies, never taken in so much of MM’s poems all at once), so I did it — and (allow the pretentious phrase) her poems really ‘spoke’ to me. I like her (work) — done. Decided. Maybe with another re-read/newer experience, I’ll round this off to a 5*? Quite likely, I should think. Particularly enjoyed the poems with ‘oceanic’/‘sea’ images/descriptions.

‘If you fear that you are
reading an advertisement,
you are. If we can’t be cordial
to these creatures’ fleece,
I think that we deserve to freeze.’
— from ‘The Arctic Fox (or Goat)’

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of my very favorite poems of all time is one of the first poems in this collection - a Jellyfish. So I was expecting to love this collection. Alas, it was not to be. It seems that many of her poems are creatures of their time, referring to people or events that have been forgotten (or, at least, not familiar to me). Some days I didn't want to pick this book up at all. I didn't actually read every poem in this collection - out of 361 pages of poems, I got to page 235.

[Rhea · Rating 4 out of 5]

“i should like to be alone”;
to which the visitor replies,
“i should like to be alone;
why not be alone together?”
below the incandescent stars

below the incandescent fruit,
the strange experience of beauty;
its existence is too much;
it tears one to pieces
and each fresh wave of consciousness

is poison.

[Julie Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm certain this poet is very good. I had a hard time connecting with her prose.

[Becca Maginn · Rating 3 out of 5]

“They fought the enemy, we fight fat living and self-pity.
Shine, o shine, unfalsifying sun, on this sick scene.”

[Autumn Kearney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since I have written poetry over the years I realize that this book contains the author's deepest thoughts and feelings. This book did not move me as I hoped it would. What a shame.

[kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ależ ona jest bystra!

[Konstanze]

uni read

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little Magazines *** – I was surprised to see in this collection Moore’s more "formal" poems and her outstanding technical skill with them. She invents her own basic stanza (AABC or sometimes just AAB) that she uses with great deft and verve. These are delightful little nuggets.

It was during this time period (1915-1919) that Moore started to do her syllabic poems that she was eventually most famous for. I have to admit to being a little cooler on these. They are often praised for their kinship to prose. My tastes go the opposite direction.

In her Collected Works, which she issued toward the end of her life (and which I used to own), the rhyming poems were banished almost completely. Thus my surprise to find these gems.

Overall, this is a good collection that I enjoyed reading. Her most famous poem “Poetry. I too dislike it…” is included in this set. My rating may go up as I continue to read this volume. For lovers of modern lyric poetry, this book is a must have.

One additional note: Of the “modern poetry masters” that she is often grouped with (Pound, Williams, Stevens, Eliot), she’s the only one (that I’m aware of) who did openly anti-war poems preceding WWI. And that is Moore’s credit over the others – she is tethered to the real world, and not just the world of literature. (And perhaps she's not as anti-democratic as the others.)

After all, what are poets for if not to speak up and take unpopular positions? If they don’t do it, who will? If they don’t engage in the issues of the day, where will the people and the age find their voice?

[Izunia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me.
After 1.5 months I don't recall a single poem.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I immensely enjoy the sounds and messages of Marianne Moore's words. Some favorite excerpts from three of her poems ~

"Man looking into the sea,
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have to it yourself,
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing,
but you cannot stand in the middle of this;
the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave."

"Half Deity
half worm. We all, infant and adult, have
stopped to watch the butterfly, last of the
elves, and learned to spare the wingless worm
that hopefully ascends the tree."

"The mind is an enchanting thing
is an enchanted thing
like the glaze on a
katydid wing"

[Elizabeth]

This is my second approach to Moore. Why didn’t I notice what a naturalist she is? This time, I let myself leaf and drift through a book of her work. I didn’t linger on poems that didn’t grab me. What rises? The frigate-bird poems. The joy of her end-notes. The weird vibe of someone toying with you, as a reader.... she’s a dominatrix, of a sort. School-marm-y, yes, but with a joy in withholding, too.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Effects of Affection"
Love's extraordinary-ordinary stubbornness...
... love can make one
bestial or make a beast a man.
Thus wholeness -

wholesomeness? say efforts of affection -
attains integration too tough for infraction.


"Voracities and Verities
Sometimes Are Interacting"
One may be pardoned, yes I know
one may, for love undying.


"The Lion in Love"
Love, ah Love, when your slipknot's drawn,
One can but say, "Farewell, good sense."