Poetry of Moore | Marianne Moore’s Poetry: She Disliked It, She Did
In the following excerpt, the author looks into the craft of Moore’s poetry and the differences between her two versions of “Poetry.”
Marianne Moore’s decision to cut her wellknown
anthology piece “Poetry” down to an unremarkable
three-liner bearing the same title has
baffled readers and critics alike. Such a histrionic,
exhibitionistic gesture—like a woman taking scissors
and roughly shearing off an admired head of
hair. (No sexism intended here—I’m referring to a
celluloid archetype.) Clearly it was an act of some
kind of loathing, a deed perpetrated against the self.
My guess is that Moore wished to inflict a symbolic
injury upon a sensibility that could produce
poetry only of a certain kind. Never mind...
[The entire page is 2742 words long]
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