Marianne Moore changed my outlook on poetry

Marianne Moore’s poem made me realize poetry is more than a “high-sounding interpretation” it is a feeling, an emotion, reading that can incite an experience. At first glance poetry might be difficult to read for example, Moore used enjambment in her sentence pattern to explain that it is difficult to understand and sometimes annoying to read but that is why she says it is for the genuine. Poetry is for the people who will let the poet’s words incite an emotion, someone who is genuine, which I felt was Moore trying to provoke those who choose to look at poetry and dismiss it because they do not understand it. Once you can understand how to read poetry you can no longer put a label on what a poem means because of how many responses and emotions a poem can ignite. Moore further goes on to explain how just because you cannot admire what you cannot understand doesn’t mean you can claim it to be invalid. This is why her poem defines poetry the best, not only did I understand poetry is subjective but can still provoke the same feeling to all who reads. Moore’s revision is even more powerful, and it makes me feel contempt with sometimes having difficulty understanding poetry but you have to allow yourself to feel what the poet is trying to explain. 

Natalie Rodriguez

Poetry Speaks

It is in my best belief that poetry is meant to simulate…something.  Evoke an emotion, cause a thought, to soothe, to confuse, so on and so forth. Now one may write a poem for any number of reasons and likewise, one may read a poem for any number of reasons, that much can be figured out. To be sure, that is not the source of conflict. What causes such back and forth argumentative dialogue lies within the meaning of poetry and the very essence of poetry’s definition. Or in other words, how might one define poetry?

Poetry by Marianne Moore tries to understand poetry; to contemplate its existence. It literally describes poetry and one may take that for an answer of what is best defined as poetry. Poetry can be convoluted, it can be confusing, and it can be “bad”, but this is part of its appeal. As she states it, “Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in/ it after all, a place for the genuine” (ll. 2-3). Even the most negative emotions can be the most genuine emotions, and we tend to hold contempt for what it is that we do not understand, but in a way that can be a way to describe poetry. Something that draws you in, good or bad. In this sense, poetry dissuades the apathetic in us.

In These are my Rivers by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the beginning of the poem hints at disillusionment with poetry and what it has become. It makes it seem as though the belief is that poetry has become useless or nonsensical, but in truth, I find the very meaning of poetry to be that very message. Not that there is any truth in poetry becoming useless, but in that poetry exists to have a message and to explain its message, though that might be in ways that we as the reader do not understand.

A perfect example of poetry we may not understand is in E.E. Cummings’ poem mortals). As I have said before, one may write and read a poem for any number of reasons, which can be explained. Yet the meaning of a poem can be so widely argued or interpreted. This is again where Moore suggests our genuine interest in poetry. Whether anyone may think the poem to be good or bad, confusing or not, Cummings draws the reader in and writes this poem with purpose, whatever that may be.

In defense of poetry, there is an aim for its existence. Something desired is conveyed. Through the uses of the concrete, the abstract, the uses of rhetoric and what have you, I find it incredibly hard to say one poem best describes poetry over another because they are all very clearly poetry. All three create interest and all three show a desire to convey. Ferlinghetti writes, “For even bad poetry has relevance” (l. 16). In many cases of the past and present, poetry is used as a source of activism of sorts. The level of dire-ness may vary, but one point is consistent. Poetry aims to tell a story, to prove a point, to provide meaning. I believe it to be impossible to say that one poem defines poetry better than another because poetry is not meant to be better or worse. Its meant to speak.

—Joseph Rojas

To each their own

By Jasmine Carrillo

In my opinion, Marianne Moores poem defines poetry the best without making it very confusing to understand. Moores poem expresses, “…the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do not admire what we cannot understand.” Poetry is something that many will define in their own way. One specific poem can be understood by someone a completely different way than it can be understood by someone else. Of course, how Moore mentioned, poetry should somehow be understood by someone, and if it’s too complex or “unintelligible” then whoever is reading it might become uninterested. For myself, the Ferlinghetti and the Cummings poem was total gibberish. To someone else those poems could be the best poems ever written in the world. I think that this is what Moore is trying to say that poetry is. Poetry is something to be read with “contempt”. Once you do, whatever understanding you get from it, is what’s genuine to each individual.

Contempt = poetry understood

By Lauren Hamilton

In contempt we learn the most about something to understand why we hate the idea of it in the first place. In the second, how to grow from the hate to better ourselves as humans. Marianne Moore says it perfectly in the cut down version of her piece “Poetry”, it speaks of having contempt for something allows the reader to find the genuine. In allowing the genuine to be defined by the reader themselves it makes defining poetry rather difficult. In the original version Moore speaks of the more various ways in which poetry pokes and prods the reader into a feelings of dislike for the subject. It is in the poking at a sore spot that one can define poetry as poetry.

The mystery of poetry

Diane Tarabay-Rodriguez

Poetry is a very complex type of writing and in many cases very difficult to comprehend. There are different types of poems some more confusing than others, for this reason, many people tend to avoid them. Marianne Moore does a great job of explaining what poetry means in her poem “poetry”. Through her poem, she incorporates humor and brings into light all the confusion that poetry can cause. Ironically, she constructs her poem with many strangely placed sentences and many other strange things that most poems consist of. What I enjoyed about her poem is that she brings comfort to the reader by mentioning that poetry is not meant to be understood and that everyone has different interpretations of poems. She goes on to talk about the fact that poetry is not something that is meant to be understood. After reading her poem, readers are able to feel relieved and relaxed. We as humans always feel the need to understand and have the answers to everything. We put so much pressure on ourselves to get all the right answers and uncover the meaning of every little thing that we encounter. We have to accept the fact that some things are unknown and must be left to the imagination.

The Beauty of Poetry

Arlyne Gonzalez
Construing Marianne Moore’s poem helped me comprehend the message she communicated about poetry which consisted of how poetry does not have to encompass complex vocabulary nor lavish diction. In other words, Moore was highlighting that poetry is a swift and concise technique of writing to avoid expressing one’s thoughts into massive blocks of writing. Moore carried the notion that one can be creatively expressive in their writing by utilizing genuine diction and tone that contributed meaning behind their intended message. For instance, Moore specified that integrating artistry diction into one’s poem can be meaningful if “eyes can dilate, hair 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 (Moore). Moore is saying that poetry can either be very colorful and ingenious with its diction that compels the reader to make an effort in attempting to fathom the text or poetry can be concise with momentous and concise language that the reader can effortlessly grasp and have no need to dive into complex thinking in order to annotate the text. Which is the reason Moore took it upon herself to revise a stanza in her poem replacing the word “fiddle” due to the word’s vague interpretation. Overall, Marianne Moore’s poem outshined Cummings’s and Ferlinghetti’s poems because Cummings’s poem made me feel I was construing a little child’s writing, meaning it was unorganized and did it did not consist of genuine diction, in fact, it was complex to understand. Ferlinghetti’s poem encompassed many words that were put well together, but I felt as though I was reading song lyrics that did not make sense and I could not find the important message about the poem. Which is why Marianne Moore’s poem outshined the other two because her message was easy to grasp. Her poem explained how the beauty of poetry does not have to consist of fancy language, but can also encompass little but meaningful thoughts.

Why Marianne Moore’s poem about poetry prevails over all others.

Through writing we find ourselves in new perspectives; whether we are aware of it at the time or not. Marianne Moore, on the other hand, is very aware of this, as is speculated in their poem “Poetry”; a satire upon the format of poetry and how even a poem consecrated in it’s meaning still raises eyebrows. I believe this poem to be the best explanation of poetry not just because of it’s humorous lay out, but what is being said behind the words. She still creates the poem as similar to others with strange sentence cut offs and middle placing; having words represent a multitude of their definitions. But then she makes fun of the process, “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.” (lines 1-3) they are aware of the confusion that poetry can create; it causes the reader to think, and scrutinize every word being put to page. Reading and deciphering poetry is liken that of trying to find a pinball in the dark, only having a mere image of where you think you saw it last. That’s what makes poetry so difficult to digest, and it causes many people to give it up. But that is also the beauty of the convoluted; is that you take upon yourself a reality you are reading in, creating your own interpretation of what the author meant. The thing with Poetry is that it never asked to be understood, you put that pressure upon yourself. But because of our nature as humans, we force ourselves to try and understand it. We are naturally attracted to knowledge, and when it is kept from us we grow frustrated with the source of confusion. from line 8 to 14 Moore depicts this “-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.” Moore uses ironic examples of varied poetic speech to reach to the reader the drowned and intricate ways that poetry has us. Reminding us that what is hard to understand are typically things that we refuse to be associated with. ‘-the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea.’ Moore represents the reader as a poetic stance, again ironic, making the reader of this poem having to see themselves in a twisted way; yet, humorous. The author takes it upon themselves to make fun of the poem and poetry itself by integrating typical poetry behavior while bashing it’s nature, and that makes the reader not only relax but finally see that poetry isn’t something to be understood, but to feel.

Poetic Irony

In Poetry by Marianne Moore, there are two conflicting ideas; that snobby, half poets and critics should back off, and that anyone who can truly appreciate it should learn to. It also goes back and forth between her own opinion of poetry, and whether she likes it or disdains it. The lines “these things are important not because a high sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are useful,” stood out to me as significant. I think that the open nature of poetry may lead to many different interpretations, but poems aren’t written for the purpose of assigning a specific meaning to them. Poems are different and will have different meanings to anyone who reads them, and the feelings that are conveyed and how the words impact the individual are much more important than what any one person may think a poem is about. 

What was interesting is that a large portion of this poem was written in sort of an elitist, obscure way, which Marianne Moore seems to condemn throughout the poem. She starts off by saying that she dislikes poetry and all the unnecessary writing and interpretation that comes with it, but then goes on to write a bunch more lines to really try to drive her point home. The revised version of this poem cuts out all of the extra lines that she complains about in the first few, which seems to me that she realized how ironic it was to write a poem in a drawn out manner that she was saying she had a problem with in the beginning.

A Place for the Genuine

 

Marianne Moore’s initial 29-line poem delves into the various ways in which poetry is understood, interpreted, and implemented into the world around us. Because it is a poem about poetry, it offers a unique perspective into poetic critique, both serving as a critique of itself as well as a broader critique of poetry as a method of expression. I think that one of the broader purposes of the poem in its original form is to challenge what poetry actually is, in its truest, most genuine form. In the fourth line, Moore refers to the poem as a “place,” when later she refers to it as a “phenomena” (line 18) and then as “raw material” (line 26). In some ways, these different classifications encourage the reader to define poetry for himself, allowing for personal clarity to manifest among the impersonal nonsense. The fact that every poem doesn’t offer the same “high-sounding interpretation” or strictly follow a certain formula allows for each poem to be understood slightly differently, thus making it both genuine and personal.

With this theory in mind, perhaps one of the reasons that Moore shortened her original poem was to reinforce this idea that poetry does not need to follow certain conventions in order to remain genuine. Poetry does not always make sense, which essentially forces the reader to question the poem’s meaning and then make his or her own interpretations. In some ways, I think that Moore’s decision to shorten the poem was her way of continuing to challenge poetry as well as leave for room for the reader to make those interpretations, thus emphasizing the individual place for the genuine within a poem.

A Blank Page

Poetry, at its basic essence, is simply the self expression of the human imagination. As a result of this nature, a poet may write lines of words with a certain image or meaning in mind, but these words could be interpreted in an entirely different way depending on the reader. I believe that it is upon the realization of this fact that Marianne Moore decided to reduce her original poem to a three line verse. The original imagery such as the “bat holding upside down” and the “wild horse taking a roll” may have personally resounded with her whilst contemplating genuine poetry, but these examples most likely were specific to her only. Thus, to better honor the freely creative spirit of poetry she decided to only use the first three lines to pique the reader’s interest and then leave the rest open for interpretation to allow the reader to personally contemplate what poetry is about. From comparing the revision to the original, it seems to me that even though it contains far fewer lines, the revised version presents the message that poetry is a beautiful thing to be appreciated in a more resounding and precise fashion. By removing the rest of lines, Moore essentially removes the aforementioned “fiddle” of the poem, enabling readers to readily contemplate and appreciate her meaning.