Biography
Born in Kirkwood, Missouri, Moore studied biology at Bryn
Mawr College. After traveling in Europe with her mother,
she taught at the U.S. Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,
and later moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she worked as
a librarian and valiantly supported the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Moore first published her poems in such little magazines
as the Egoist, Poetry, and Others, later
editing the Dial, a highly regarded modernist periodical.
In her poetry Moore experimented with the stanza and strived
to unite what she called "precision, economy of statement
[and] logic" with complex rhyme patterns, syllable counts,
and ornate diction. Her volumes include Poems (1921), Observations (1924), Collected
Poems (1951), and Complete Poems (1967)
Explorations
Written between 1921 and 1959, the Moore selections seem
to float free of referents from ordinary experience; they
don't allude clearly to other poems or poets; and they seem
to delight in contradictions:
-
. . . 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, then you are
interested in poetry.
-
(Poetry)
A good strategy for getting acquainted with Moore's poems is
to read several without getting hung up on enigmas and
ambiguities. If Moore respects a difference between the "raw" and the "genuine," perhaps
we can see that difference in her own work--and one way
to perceive it might be to step back and look for motifs and
patterns among the poems, the way one steps back from the
wall to look
at a collection of Impressionist paintings. When we do
this, we may begin to notice some large, recurring themes.
1.
Read the following
Moore poems in NAAL: Bird-Witted,
The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing, and In
Distrust of Merits. Discuss moments or
passages where you see Moore showing the following
interests or qualities:
(a) a delight
in being contrarian,
in going against
some of the familiar
patterns of Modernist
poetry
(b) a celebration
of the personal,
of the private
interior of the
self
(c) a pleasure
in subtle patterns
and almost invisible
complexities
(d) an uncertainty
about which human
faculty is to be
trusted more, in poetry and in ordinary life--the
intellect or the
intuition
2. If you hear something that sounds
like Dickinson in Bird-Witted,
try reading the poem in the company
of Dickinson's A bird came down
the walk, and describe similarities
and differences in tone and theme.
Why is Moore's cat "intellectual"?
3.
Read Moore's Nevertheless with Emerson's The
Rhodora and
Frost's The
Wood-Pile or Spring
Pools in
mind. How does Moore respond
to Emerson and Frost with
regard to the general theme
of celebrating energy and
beauty? How does she develop
the theme differently and
make it her own?
4.
Moore
experiments
with
form
and
line
lengths
in The
Mind
Is
an
Enchanting
Thing.
Discuss
the
relationships
you
see
between
form
and
meaning
in
this
poem.
Could O
to
Be
a
Dragon serve
as
a
postscript
to
such
a
discussion?
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