David J Bauman

First of all, thank you for this great discussion on value and viability of poetry that has been going on among us. I hope it continues. I thought today we’d put the discussion into, well a poem. And since I have not yet, and might never write one on this particular topic, and Marianne Moore has already been kind enough to provide one, let’s bring her into it.

This is her poem called “Poetry,” which it seems she has edited multiple times over the years. This version from 1924 is generally seen as the best draft. Her 1967  version just cut out everything but the first four lines, which makes it, to my mind, not much of a poem at all, no metaphor, no music . . . just a plain statement. I like it in this form.  I do think that her first line is meant to both get at some of us poetry lovers, and to make others feel more comfortable. But I think it’s a literary device. What do you think? Does she really dislike it? And not to sound like your tenth grade English teacher, but what does she dislike?  You can click right here to listen to Robert Pinsky read this poem (scroll down the page).

“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