{"id":243,"date":"2006-05-09T21:00:36","date_gmt":"2006-05-09T20:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/index.php\/2006\/05\/09\/poetry-monday-late-again\/"},"modified":"2006-05-09T21:00:36","modified_gmt":"2006-05-09T20:00:36","slug":"poetry-monday-late-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/2006\/05\/09\/poetry-monday-late-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Monday, Late Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the many entertaining characters I encountered in reading Rachel Cohen\u2019s brilliant set of interlinked mini-biographies of American artists, \u201cA Chance Meeting<\/a>???, the one I would most like to meet, with the possible exception of Mark Twain, would be the poet Marianne Moore<\/a>. I think what impressed me most about her was the sheer style<\/em> of her eccentricity. She wore a black cape and Tricorne hat when out in public. Fastidiously punctual, she also sported two watches. Trips in public included visits to the fights, which she adored. She particularly liked Muhammad Ali, and wrote the sleeve notes for his album, I Am The Greatest. Baseball was another passion, such that (and I think this is my favourite detail) she threw in the opening ball of the Yankees 1968 season. She had a bit of a thing about elephants, and never missed the circus when it was in town. If no circus was available, there was always the zoo. A bit of a prude and a devoted Republican (perhaps for their elephant connection?), she nonetheless got on like a house on fire with a Norman Mailer at the height of his fame and boorishness. What\u2019s not to like? Even before I\u2019d read a word of her work, I was a fan. This is her most famous poem, entitled \u201cPoetry<\/a>???<\/p>\n

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
\n all this fiddle.
\n Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
\n discovers in
\n it after all, a place for the genuine.
\n Hands that can grasp, eyes
\n that can dilate, hair that can rise
\n if it must, these things are important not because a<\/p>\n

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
\n they are
\n useful. When they become so derivative as to become
\n unintelligible,
\n the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
\n do not admire what
\n we cannot understand: the bat
\n holding on upside down or in quest of something to<\/p>\n

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
\n wolf under
\n a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
\n that feels a flea, the base-
\n ball fan, the statistician–
\n nor is it valid
\n to discriminate against “business documents and<\/p>\n

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make
\n a distinction
\n however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
\n result is not poetry,
\n nor till the poets among us can be
\n “literalists of
\n the imagination”–above
\n insolence and triviality and can present<\/p>\n

for inspection, “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,”
\n shall we have
\n it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
\n the raw material of poetry in
\n all its rawness and
\n that which is on the other hand
\n genuine, you are interested in poetry.<\/em><\/p>\n

The opening line, \u201cI too dislike it??? is of course a bluff, less bold than it first appears to be. It is used as a means of shunning the high-falutin\u2019 and emphasising kinship with the ordinary and the genuine, rather than being a genuine renunciation of her own craft. Almost as soon as she makes her opening statement, she begins taking it back. One discovers in poetry \u201ca place for the genuine???. Poetry, when it has the savour of reality, is, she says with considerable understatement, \u201cuseful???. It becomes clear to the reader that she comes not to bury poetry but to praise it. Or rather, to praise true poetry and to bury the dross perpetrated in its name (\u201cwhen dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry???). Giving school books, baseball statistics and business documents their due, Moore is celebrating the details of the everyday, those that the pretentious \u201chalf poets??? might dismiss as mundane. Her stance then is an adroit one; setting \u201cPoetry??? up in opposition to \u201cLife???, she practices the latter by privileging the former. Her final verse contains her charming, surrealist demand of true poets, that they \u201cpresent for inspection, \u2018imaginary gardens with real toads in them\u2019???. It goes on to demand from poetry honesty and fidelity to reality, qualities Moore has given in abundance in this odd, remarkable poem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the many entertaining characters I encountered in reading Rachel Cohen\u2019s brilliant set of interlinked mini-biographies of American artists, \u201cA Chance Meeting???, the one I would most like to meet, with the possible exception of Mark Twain, would be the poet Marianne Moore. I think what impressed me most about her was the sheer style of her eccentricity. She wore a black cape and Tricorne hat when out in public. Fastidiously punctual, she also sported two watches. Trips in public included visits to the fights, which she adored. She particularly liked Muhammad Ali, and wrote the sleeve notes for his album, I Am The Greatest. Baseball was another passion, such that (and I think this is my favourite detail) she threw in the opening ball of the Yankees 1968 season. She had a bit of a thing about elephants, and never missed the circus when it was in town. If no circus was available, there was always the zoo. A bit of a prude and a devoted Republican (perhaps for their elephant connection?), she nonetheless got on like a house on fire with a Norman Mailer at the height of his fame and boorishness. What\u2019s not to like? Even before I\u2019d read a word of her work, I was a fan. This is her most famous poem, entitled \u201cPoetry??? 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 […]","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuppenceworth.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}