The Poems of Marianne Moore

by Moore, Marianne

• ISBN13: 9780143039082
• ISBN10: 0143039083
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-29
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

This complete collection of Moore’s poetry, lovingly edited by prize-winning poet Grace Schulman, for the first time gathers together allof Moore’s poems, including more than a hundred that were previously uncollected and unpublished. This long-awaited volume will reveal to Moore’s admirers the scope of her poetic voice and will introduce new generations of readers to her extraordinary achievement.

Author Biography

Marianne Moore (1887-û1972) was awarded the Bollingen Prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for her Collected Poems.
Grace Schulman is the recipient of the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern Poetry and author, most recently, of Days of Wonder: New and Selected Poems.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xvii
Prelude, December 25, 1895
Dear St. Nicklus;	3	(4)
Early Poems, 1907-1913
Under a Patched Sail	7	(1)
To Come After a Sonnet	8	(1)
To My Cup-Bearer	9	(1)
The Sentimentalist	10	(1)
He Made This Screen	11	(1)
Ennui	12	(1)
A Red Flower	13	(1)
A Jelly-Fish	14	(1)
Progress	15	(1)
A Fish	16	(1)
My Lantern	17	(1)
Tunica Pallio Proprior	18	(1)
My Senses Do Not Deceive Me	19	(1)
Qui S'Excuse, S'Accuse	20	(1)
Elfride, Making Epigrams	21	(1)
A Talisman	22	(1)
Leaves of a Magazine	23	(1)
The Beast of Burden	24	(1)
Things Are What They Seem	25	(1)
This Is the Way Toads Talk:	26	(1)
To Pierrot Returning to His Orchid	27	(1)
To Pharaoh's Baker Plucking Up Courage to Ask the Interpretation of His Dream, When a Favorable Interpretation Had Been Accorded the Dream of Pharaoh's Butler	28	(1)
Piningly	29	(2)
Artificers and the Alchemist	31	(1)
To You-of the World, Not in the World:	32	(1)
Wisdom at Last	33	(1)
To a Stiff-winged Grasshopper	34	(1)
Emeralds	35	(1)
Sun, Moon, and Stars:	36	(1)
Polyphonic Craftsman, Coated Like a Zebra, Fleeing Like the Wild Ass, Mourning Like a Dove,	37	(1)
All of It, as Recorded	38	(1)
"Am I a Brother to Dragons and a Companion to Owls?"	39	(1)
"And Shall Life Pass an Old Maid By?"	40	(1)
The Assassins	41	(1)
Axiomatic	42	(1)
Reprobate Silver	43	(1)
The Candle-Stick Maker	44	(1)
"Coral-and-Brown" Admiring Herself in the Mirror	45	(1)
"Crepe Hanger?" He	46	(1)
To a Cantankerous Poet Ignoring His Compeers-Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, Henry James	47	(1)
The Fashion, Poor Lady, Behaving Like a Dungeon, Looking Like a Church	48	(1)
Flints, Not Flowers	49	(1)
The Grass That Perisheth	50	(1)
Guillemots	51	(1)
He Did Mend It. His Body Filled a Substantial Interstice	52	(1)
"I Like a Horse but I Have a Fellow Feeling for a Mule"	53	(1)
I Tell You No Lie	54	(1)
Ichabod	55	(1)
Inheritance	56	(2)
"It Makes No Difference to Balbus Whether He Drinks Wine or Water"	58	(1)
Kay Nielson in Cinderella	59	(1)
Kay Nielson's Little Green Patch in the Midst of the Forest	60	(1)
A Lady with Pearls, to a Blood Red Rook from Turkey, Who Has Depicted Her with Pathos in Surly Monotone	61	(1)
Light Through a Keyhole	62	(1)
Like Bertram Dobell, You Achieve Distinction by Disclaiming It	63	(1)
Majestic Haystack	64	(1)
Man's Feet Are a Sensational Device	65	(1)
Patriotic Sentiment and the Maker	66	(1)
As Has Been Said	67	(1)
Rencontre	68	(1)
Rodin's Penseur	69	(1)
Suaviter in Modo	70	(1)
To See It Is to Know That Mendelssohn Would Never Do:	71	(1)
To Worldly Wisemen Recommending the Town of Carnal Policy as a Substitute for the Celestial City	72	(1)
God Bless You, Sir	73	(1)
We All Know It	74	(1)
Why That Question:	75	(1)
You Are Very Pensive-Hammering Out in Darkness What Will Not Bear the Light of Day	76	(3)
Little Magazines, 1915-1919
Ezra Pound:	79	(1)
To a Man Working His Way Through the Crowd	80	(1)
To Military Progress	81	(1)
Pouters and Fantails	82	(3)
That Harp You Play So Well	82	(1)
To an Intra-Mural Rat	83	(1)
Counseil to a Bachelor	83	(1)
Appellate Jurisdiction	84	(1)
The Wizard in Words	84	(1)
To William Butler Yeats on Tagore	85	(1)
The North Wind to a Dutiful Beast Midway Between the Dial and the Foot of a Garden Clock	86	(1)
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel	87	(1)
To a Strategist	88	(1)
Injudicious Gardening	89	(1)
To a Prize Bird	90	(1)
Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight	91	(1)
To a Steam Roller	92	(1)
To Statecraft Embalmed	93	(1)
To a Friend in the Making	94	(1)
Blake	95	(1)
George Moore	96	(1)
The Past Is the Present,	97	(1)
Masks	98	(1)
Diogenes	99	(1)
Sun	100	(1)
"He Wrote the History Book'	101	(1)
To a Chameleon	102	(1)
Is Your Town Nineveh?	103	(1)
You Are Fire Eaters	104	(1)
Pedantic Literalist	105	(1)
Critics and Connoisseurs	106	(2)
In This Age of Hard Trying, Nonchalance Is Good and	108	(1)
To Be Liked by You Would Be a Calamity	109	(2)
Feed Me, Also, River God no Apropos of Mice	111	(1)
"She Trimmed the Candles Like One Who Loves the Beautiful"	112	(1)
In "Designing a Cloak to Cloak His Designs," You Wrested from Oblivion a Coat of Immortality for Your Own Use	113	(1)
Holes Bored in a Workbag by the Scissors	114	(1)
The Just Man and	115	(1)
Those Various Scalpels	116	(1)
Like a Bulrush	117	(1)
To the Peacock of France	118	(1)
Sojourn in the Whale	119	(1)
Roses Only	120	(1)
The Monkeys	121	(1)
Melanchthon	122	(3)
An Ardent Platonist	125	(1)
Reinforcements	126	(1)
The Fish	127	(2)
Callot-Drecol-Cheruit-Jenny-Doucet-Aviotte-Lady	129	(2)
You Say You Said	131	(1)
Old Tiger	132	(2)
Radical	134	(1)
Poetry	135	(1)
In the Days of Prismatic Color	136	(1)
Dock Rats	137	(1)
Picking and Choosing	138	(3)
The Dial Years, 1920-1925
England	141	(2)
Lines on a Visit of Anne Carroll Moore to Hudson Park Branch	143	(1)
When I Buy Pictures	144	(1)
A Grave	145	(1)
New York	146	(1)
The Labors of Hercules	147	(1)
Snakes, Mongooses, Snake-Charmers, and the Like	148	(1)
People's Surroundings	149	(3)
Novices	152	(2)
Bowls	154	(1)
Marriage	155	(8)
Silence	163	(1)
Sea Unicorns and Land Unicorns	164	(3)
An Octopus	167	(6)
An Egyptian Pulled Glass Bottle in the Shape of a Fish	173	(1)
To a Snail	174	(1)
"The Bricks Are Fallen Down, We Will Build with Hewn Stones. The Sycamores Are Cut Down, We Will Change to Cedars"	175	(1)
"Nothing Will Cure the Sick Lion but to Eat an Ape"	176	(1)
Peter	177	(2)
The Monkey Puzzle	179	(1)
A Fool, a Foul Thing, a Distressful Lunatic	180	(3)
Lyrics and Sequences, 1926-1940
The Steeple-Jack	183	(2)
The Student	185	(2)
The Hero	187	(2)
No Swan So Fine	189	(1)
The Jerboa	190	(5)
To Peace	195	(1)
The Plumet Basilisk	196	(5)
Camellia Sabina	201	(3)
The Frigate Pelican	204	(2)
The Buffalo	206	(2)
Nine Nectarines	208	(2)
Pigeons	210	(4)
Virginia Britannia	214	(5)
Bird-Witted	219	(2)
Half Deity	221	(3)
Smooth Gnarled Crape Myrtle	224	(2)
The Pangolin	226	(3)
Walking-Sticks and Paper-Weights and Water Marks	229	(4)
See in the Midst of Fair Leaves	233	(4)
World War II and After, 1940-1956
Four Quartz Crystal Clocks	237	(2)
What Are Years	239	(1)
The Paper Nautilus	240	(2)
Rigorists	242	(1)
Light Is Speech	243	(2)
He "Digesteth Harde Yron"	245	(2)
Spenser's Ireland	247	(2)
The Wood-Weasel	249	(1)
Pale Morning Moon, Dark Blue Black Sea,	250	(1)
You, Your Horse	251	(1)
In Distrust of Merits	252	(3)
Nevertheless	255	(2)
Elephants	257	(3)
The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing	260	(2)
A Carriage from Sweden	262	(2)
"Keeping Their World Large"	264	(2)
His Shield	266	(1)
Propriety	267	(2)
Advent	269	(1)
A Face	270	(1)
Efforts of Affection	271	(1)
At Rest in the Blast	272	(1)
I Ike a Bulwark	273	(1)
Veracities and Verities Sometimes Are Interacting	274	(1)
By Disposition of Angels	275	(1)
Armor's Undermining Modesty	276	(2)
The Stuttering Quagmires Speak	278	(1)
The Icosasphere	279	(1)
Pretiolae	280	(1)
Quoting an Also Private Thought	281	(1)
We Call Them the Brave	282	(1)
Then the Ermine:	283	(2)
Apparition of Splendor	285	(1)
Tom Fool at Jamaica	286	(2)
The Web One Weaves of Italy	288	(1)
Rosemary	289	(1)
The Staff of Aesculapius	290	(1)
The Sycamore	291	(4)
The Magic Flute, 1956-1965
Style	295	(2)
Logic and "The Magic Flute"	297	(1)
Blessed Is the Man	298	(1)
Values in Use	299	(1)
Hometown Piece for Messrs. Alston and Reese	300	(3)
O to Bea Dragon	303	(1)
Enough: Jamestown, 1607-1957	304	(2)
Melchior Vulpius	306	(1)
In the Public Garden	307	(2)
The Arctic Ox (or Goat)	309	(3)
Saint Nicholas,	312	(2)
For February 14th	314	(1)
No Better Than "a Withered Daffodil"	315	(1)
Combat Cultural	316	(2)
Leonardo da Vinci's	318	(2)
Saint Valentine,	320	(1)
Lines for Narrator	321	(2)
Tell Me, Tell Me	323	(2)
Carnegie Hall: Rescued	325	(2)
Rescue with Yul Brynner	327	(2)
To Victor Hugo of My Crow Pluto	329	(3)
Yvor Winters-	332	(1)
Baseball and Writing	333	(3)
Arthur Mitchell	336	(1)
Blue Bug	337	(2)
Charity Overcoming Envy	339	(1)
To a Giraffe	340	(1)
"Avec Ardeur"	341	(3)
W.S. Landor	344	(1)
The Master Tailor	345	(1)
An Expedient-Leonardo da Vinci's-and a Query	346	(2)
Old Amusement Park	348	(3)
Late Poems, 1965-1972
Dream	351	(1)
In Lieu of the Lyre	352	(1)
The Mind, Intractable Thing	353	(1)
Granite and Steel	354	(1)
Love in America	355	(1)
For Katharine Elizabeth McBride, President of Bryn Mawr College	356	(1)
Tippoo's Tiger	357	(1)
The Camperdown Elm	358	(1)
Assistance	359	(1)
Mercifully	360	(1)
"Reminiscent of a Wave at the Curl"	361	(1)
A Christmas Poem	362	(1)
Enough	363	(1)
The Magician's Retreat	364	(1)
Prevalent at One Time	365	(4)
Selections from The Fables of La Fontaine
The Fox and the Grapes	369	(1)
The Lion in Love	370	(2)
The Animals Sick of the Plague	372	(2)
The Bear and the Garden-Lover	374	(2)
The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid	376	(3)
Marianne Moore's Notes	379	(24)
Editor's Notes, with the Poetry's Attributions and Variants	403	(42)
Index of Titles and First Lines	445