Dear colleges,
This Monday, October 29th, we are presenting Marianne Moore and her "Poetry". Please note
that the version of the poem you have in the photocopy brakes the longest
lines. Although the poem is written in a free verse, there are planned metrics
and a searched rhyme. That’s the reason why we’ve copied the whole poem here
bellow:
"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 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 twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base-
*****ball fan, the
statistician—
***********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 poets 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,
*****the raw material of
poetry in
***********all its rawness
and
***********that which is on
the other hand
*****************genuine,
you are interested in poetry.
********************************************—Marianne Moore
After
having read it, we would like you to think in the following questions. Of
course, your answers will always be welcomed and presumably helpful.
1.
Reading
the first words, one must realize the irony of the declaration against the
poetry, since it is made through a poem. But this sentence is probably not a
mere ironic, shocking or comic affirmation, given that appeals to someone who
supposedly shares her opinion: “I, too,
dislike it [the poetry]”. Could this be an appellation to the reader, who is
actually reading poetry? Did you feel identified when you read it for the first
time?
2.
The
criticism is a main factor of the poem. It seems that the poet is constructing
her poetic view by opposition to the poetry she dislikes. Which kind of poetry
is the poet referring to? Can we localize textual evidences of that? Does the
poem say how the poetry is, or how should it be?
3.
In
the third line, poetry is described as “a place for the genuine”. In an
interview for “The Paris Review”, in 1967, Moore said she “disliked the term
poetry for any but Chaucer’s or Shakespeare’s or Dante’s. […] What I write
could only be called poetry because there is no other category in which to put
it”. The terms “place” and “category” are free of aesthetic connotations: do
you think they are appropriated to describe poetry?
4.
On
the formal analysis, it is clear the use of free verse, the prose-like style,
the strange rhyme and rhythm, the unrefined line breaks and the use of common
words. What can be the objective or the reason of doing it?
5.
The
author published a few versions of this poem. In her Complete Poems, appeared in 1967 (three years before she died), Moore
reduced it to three lines:
“Poetry”
I, too, dislike it.
***Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it,
one discovers in
***it, after all, a place for the genuine.
This was
object of a huge amount of criticism: the fans thought the images of the poem
were essential. In what sense do you think the short version changes the
message of the poem?
Guillem & Pol
