Poetry by Marianne Moore poem summary, American Literature II, 3rd Year 5th Semester, B.A English Literature

 BA English Literature

[3rd Year, 5th Semester]
American Literature – II 

Unit 1: Poetry 

Click the above video for detail poem explanation

1.3. “Poetry” by Marianne Moore

 

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 be-

                    cause 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 some-

                    thing 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 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.

About Poem:

       This poem was first printed in 1919 in “Others for 1919: An Anthology of the New Verse” and subsequently revised by Moore several times until only the first three lines of the poem remained. She published the full version in 1924 collection “Observations’, which consists of a five-line stanza surrounded by two pairs of six-line stanzas and same was published again in “The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore” in 1967.

 

Summary:

In ‘Poetry’ Moore engages with themes of writing and self-expression. ‘Poetry’ is a poem about poetry. Moore speaks very briefly on the one quality that poetry has that makes it redeemable and worth returning to, its means of genuine expression. The poem itself is an expression of the same genuine attitude that Moore finds in other poetic works.

Stanza 1:

The speaker opens by admitting that she, "too, dislike[s] it." The "it" she's referring to is poetry, both the title of the poem and its subject. Other things, the speaker says, are more important than "all this fiddle," or nonsense. Yet even those who hate poetry have to admit that when it is "genuine," it can provoke a physical reaction in the reader.

Stanza 2:

The speaker states that good poetry—the kind that makes someone's hair stand on end—is "useful." Useful poems aren't an imitation of another's work, and they don't lend themselves to "high-sounding interpretations." After all, the speaker points out, it's hard to admire something one doesn't understand. The stanza ends with the image of a bat hanging upside down or searching "in quest of something to."

Stanza 3:

The third stanza opens with "eat," finishing the thought from the previous stanza (enjambment). The same sentence continues with images of animals engaged in very natural acts: a wild horse rolling, an elephant "pushing," a wolf "under a tree." The same sentence then lists a few people—the "immovable critic," who is compared to a horse bothered by fleas, a sports fan, and a statistician. These are just a few examples of "case after case" that could be cited. All are equally valid and interesting, the speaker argues, as are the "business documents" introduced in the sentence that continues in the next stanza.

Stanza 4:

The previous stanza's sentence wraps up by including textbooks and claiming that "all these phenomena are important." Any subject, the speaker argues, can make a good poem as long as the poem is written by a real poet, not a "half poet." The speaker also states that good poetry will not exist until the "autocrats" (the supposed authorities who determine what makes "good" poetry), become "literalists of the imagination." Those autocrats must stop being trivial and rude and be able to "present"—the last word in the stanza. Once again the thought is incomplete and continued in the next stanza.

Stanza 5:

What the autocrats need to be able to present for others to examine is "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." Only then "shall we have / it": real poetry. Until then, those who demand "the raw material" of genuine poetry can count themselves among those who really are "interested in poetry."

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