12 Poems by Marianne Moore, Influential Modernist Poet
By Nava Atlas | On March 13, 2020 | Updated August 31, 2022 | Comments (2)
Marianne Moore (1887 – 1972) isn’t an easy poet to read or digest. Yet the patient and diligent reader will be amply rewarded. Here are 12 poems by Marianne Moore sampled from a long writing career that blossomed in the early 1920s and started even earlier than that.
Moore was a modernist poet who both influenced and was influenced by other modernist poets. In Marianne Moore: A Literary Life, biographer Charles Molesworth, attempted to sum up what made her the poet she came to be, not an easy task:
“It will not do to replace with something like tough-mindedness the picture of Moore’s obscurity or eccentricity or what she called, in a different context but with a hint of playful self-description her ‘Moor-ish gorgeousness.’
She is simple and complex, direct and subtle; her tone often blends the natural and the highly cultivated. Better if her readers try to maintain more than a single perspective.
Moore, clearly one of the most well-read and intelligent writers of her generation … never flaunted her learning. In an essay published in 1957, called ‘Subject, Predicate, Object,’ she spoke of the influence her mother had on her by awakening in her a strong curiosity in things like history.
But she went on: ‘Curiosity; and books. I think books are chiefly responsible for my doggedly self-determined efforts to write; books and verisimilitude; I like to describe things.’
This is very revealing, because Moore is first and last a literary poet; her intelligence and experience are bound up with reading, in a way outmoded among many people today.”
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Learn more about Marianne Moore
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In addition to the poems following, here’s an entire post dedicated to “Marriage” — one of Moore’s longest and most complex poems. The following poems are included in this listing:
- Poetry
- Baseball and Writing
- Nevertheless
- Rosemary
- A Grave
- The Paper Nautilus
- The Past is the Present
- Picking and Choosing
- You Say You Said
- Ennui
- When I Buy Pictures
- Silence
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Poetry
I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers that there is in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful; when they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible, the
same thing may be said for all of us—that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand. The bat,
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse
that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician—case after case
could be cited did
one wish it; nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and
school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets,
the result is not poetry,
nor till the autocrats among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination”—above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them,
shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in
defiance of their opinion—
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness, and
that which is on the other hand,
genuine, then you are interested in poetry.
(First published in Others for 1919: An Anthology of the New Verse)
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Baseball and Writing
(Suggested by post-game broadcasts)
Fanaticism? No.Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement—
a fever in the victim—
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply?
Who is excited? Might it be I?
It’s a pitcher’s battle all the way—a duel—
a catcher’s, as, with cruel
puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly
back to plate.(His spring
de-winged a bat swing.)
They have that killer instinct;
yet Elston—whose catching
arm has hurt them all with the bat—
when questioned, says, unenviously,
“I’m very satisfied. We won.”
Shorn of the batting crown, says, “We”;
robbed by a technicality.
When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
the massive run need not be everything.
“Going, going . . . “Is
it? Roger Maris
has it, running fast.You will
never see a finer catch.Well . . .
“Mickey, leaping like the devil”—why
gild it, although deer sounds better—
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
one-handing the souvenir-to-be
meant to be caught by you or me.
Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral;
he could handle any missile.
He is no feather.”Strike! . . . Strike two!”
Fouled back.A blur.
It’s gone.You would infer
that the bat had eyes.
He put the wood to that one.
Praised, Skowron says, “Thanks, Mel.
I think I helped a little bit.”
All business, each, and modesty.
Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer.
In that galaxy of nine, say which
won the pennant? Each. It was he.
Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws
by Boyer, finesses in twos—
like Whitey’s three kinds of pitch and pre-
diagnosis
with pick-off psychosis.
Pitching is a large subject.
Your arm, too true at first, can learn to
catch your corners—even trouble
Mickey Mantle.(“Grazed a Yankee!
My baby pitcher, Montejo!”
With some pedagogy,
you’ll be tough, premature prodigy.)
They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying
indeed! The secret implying:
“I can stand here, bat held steady.”
One may suit him;
none has hit him.
Imponderables smite him.
Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it!
Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow’s milk, “tiger’s milk,” soy milk, carrot juice,
brewer’s yeast (high-potency—
concentrates presage victory
sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez—
deadly in a pinch. And “Yes,
it’s work; I want you to bear down,
but enjoy it
while you’re doing it.”
Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
if you have a rummage sale,
don’t sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh.
Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.
O flashing Orion,
your stars are muscled like the lion.
(From The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore © 1961, 1989)
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Nevertheless
you’ve seen a strawberry
that’s had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,
a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food
than apple seeds – the fruit
within the fruit – locked in
like counter-curved twin
hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant –
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can’t
harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear –
leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;
as carrots form mandrakes
or a ram’s-horn root some-
times. Victory won’t come
to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till
knotted thirty times – so
the bound twig that’s under-
gone and over-gone, can’t stir.
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!
(Title poem from the collection Nevertheless, 1944)
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Rosemary
Beauty and Beauty’s son and rosemary–
Venus and Love, her son, to speak plainly—
born of the sea supposedly,
at Christmas each, in company,
braids a garland of festivity.
Not always rosemary—
since the flight to Egypt, blooming indifferently.
With lancelike leaf, green but silver underneath,
its flowers– white originally —
turned blue. The herb of memory,
imitating the blue robe of Mary,
is not too legendary
to flower both as symbol and as pungency.
Springing from stones beside the sea,
the height of Christ when he was thirty—three,
it feeds on dew and to the bee
“hath a dumb language”; is in reality
a kind of Christmas tree.
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A Grave
Man looking into the sea,
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you
have to 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.
The firs stand in a procession, each with an emerald turkey-foot at
the top,
reserved as their contours, saying nothing;
repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the
sea;
the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
There are others besides you who have worn that look—
whose expression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer
investigate them
for their bones have not lasted:
men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are desecrating
a grave,
and row quickly away—the blades of the oars
moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no
such thing as death.
The wrinkles progress among themselves in a phalanx—beautiful
under networks of foam,
and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the
seaweed;
the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls as
heretofore—
the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion
beneath them;
and the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of
bellbuoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which
dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor
consciousness.
(1921; later published in The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore, © 1981)
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The Paper Nautilus
For authorities whose hopes
are shaped by mercenaries?
Writers entrapped by
teatime fame and by
commuters’ comforts? Not for these
the paper nautilus
constructs her thin glass shell.
Giving her perishable
souvenir of hope, a dull
white outside and smooth-
edged inner surface
glossy as the sea, the watchful
maker of it guards it
day and night; she scarcely
eats until the eggs are hatched.
Buried eight-fold in her eight
arms, for she is in
a sense a devil-
fish, her glass ram’s horn-cradled freight
is hid but is not crushed;
as Hercules, bitten
by a crab loyal to the hydra,
was hindered to succeed,
the intensively
watched eggs coming from
the shell free it when they are freed,—
leaving its wasp-nest flaws
of white on white, and close-
laid Ionic chiton-folds
like the lines in the mane of
a Parthenon horse,
round which the arms had
wound themselves as if they knew love
is the only fortress
strong enough to trust to.
(From The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore © 1961, 1989)
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The Past is the Present
Revived bitterness
is unnecessary unless
One is ignorant.
To-morrow will be
Yesterday unless you say the
Days of the week back-
Ward. Last weeks’ circus
Overflow frames an old grudge. Thus:
When you attempt to
Force the doors and come
At the cause of the shouts, you thumb
A brass nailed echo.
(This poem is in the public domain)
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Picking and Choosing
Literature is a phase of life: if
one is afraid of it, the situation is irremediable; if
one approaches it familiarly,
what one says of it is worthless. Words are constructive
when they are true; the opaque allusion—the simulated flight
upward—accomplishes nothing. Why cloud the fact
that Shaw if self-conscious in the field of sentiment but is
otherwise rewarding? that James is all that has been
said of him but is not profound? It is not Hardy
the distinguished novelist and Hardy the poet, but one man
“interpreting life through the medium of the
emotions.” If he must give an opinion, it is permissible that the
critic should know what he likes. Gordon
Craig with his “this is I” and “this is mine,” with his three
wise men, his “sad French greens” and his Chinese cherries—
Gordon Craig, so
inclinational and unashamed—has carried
the percept of being a good critic, to the last extreme. And
Burke is a
psychologist—of acute, raccoon-
like curiosity. Summa diligentia;
to the humbug whose name is so amusing—very young and very
rushed, Caesar crossed the Alps on the “top of a
diligence.” We are not daft about the meaning but this
familiarity
with wrong meanings puzzles one. Humming-
bug, the candles are not wired for electricity.
Small dog, going over the lawn, nipping the linen and saying
that you have a badger—remember Xenophon;
only the most rudimentary sort of behavior is necessary
to put us on the scent; a “right good
salvo of barks,” a few “strong wrinkles” puckering the
skin between the ears, are all we ask.
(ca. 1920; This poem is in the public domain)
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You Say You Said
“Few words are best.”
Not here. Discretion has been abandoned in this part
of the world too lately
For it to be admired. Disgust for it is like the
Equinox—all things in
One. Disgust is
No psychologist and has not opportunity to be a hypocrite.
It says to the saw-toothed bayonet and to the cue
Of blood behind the sub-
Marine—to the
Poisoned comb, to the Kaiser of Germany and to the
intolerant gateman at the exit from the eastbound ex-
press: “I hate
You less than you must hate
Yourselves: You have
Accoutred me. ‘Without enemies one’s courage flags.’
Your error has been timed
To aid me, I am in debt to you for you have primed
Me against subterfuge.”
(1918; This poem is in the public domain)
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Ennui
He often expressed
A curious wish,
To be interchangeably
Man and fish;
To nibble the bait
Off the hook,
Said he,
And then slip away
Like a ghost
In the sea.
(1909; This poem is in the public domain)
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When I Buy Pictures
or what is closer to the truth,
when I look at that of which I may regard myself as the imaginary
possessor,
I fix upon what would give me pleasure in my average moments:
the satire upon curiosity in which no more is discernible
than the intensity of the mood;
or quite the opposite—the old thing, the medieval decorated hat-
box,
in which there are hounds with waists diminishing like the waist
of the hour-glass,
and deer and birds and seated people;
it may be no more than a square of parquetry; the literal
biography perhaps,
in letters standing well apart upon a parchment-like expanse;
an artichoke in six varieties of blue; the snipe-legged hieroglyphic
in three parts;
the silver fence protecting Adam’s grave, or Michael taking Adam
by the wrist.
Too stern an intellectual emphasis upon this quality or that
detracts from one’s enjoyment.
It must not wish to disarm anything; nor may the approved
triumph easily be honored—
that which is great because something else is small.
It comes to this: of whatever sort it is,
it must be “lit with piercing glances into the life of things”;
it must acknowledge the spiritual forces which have made it.
(1921; This poem is in the public domain)
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Silence
My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat—
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth—
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.”
Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”
Inns are not residences.
(1924; First published in The Dial)
There is, in your printing of “Nevertheless,” an important mistake (much reproduced): Instead of “as carrots from mandrake” read “as carrots form mandrake” etc.) The first version makes no sense: the second (Moore’s original) means “just as carrots, while growing as a root vegetable, sometimes make not a normal straight root, but sometimes split into two roots growing from the same top, or curl into a ram’s horn shape, because of some deflection-point, like a stone they have to grow around, so a deformity in a person (for instance, a limp) is often a sign of some obstruction they have had to overcome by struggle (for instance, a childhood polio infection.” Please correct, in service to Moore!
Thank you so much for pointing that out, Helen — the correction has been made.