Marianne Moore - That Harp You Play So Well

Marianne Moore - That Harp You Play So Well

Forgotten Poets #23 / forgottenpoets.substack.com

'That Harp You Play So Well' [90 pages] brings together a selection of poems by New York poet, Marianne Moore, including the entire long poem sequence 'Marriage' (1923), and a generous selection of Moore's other verses (originally published 1921-1924), as well as the essay 'New Verse Since 1912' (1926); with illustrations by Pamela Bianco. Moore was a revolutionary poet, working in the grey space between 'free' and 'rhymed' verse, and a significant poet of the 'new verse' movement of the 1920s.

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-: TO A SNAIL: -

If "compression is the first grace of style,"

you have it. Contractility is a virtue

as modesty is a virtue.

It is not the acquisition of any one thing that is able to adorn,

or the incidental quality that occurs

as a concomitant of something well said,

that we value in style,

but the principle that is hid:

in the absence of feet, "a method of conclusions";

"a knowledge of principles,"

in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.

. . . . . . . . .

-: APROPOS OF MICE: -

Come in, Rat, and eat with me;

One must occasionally-

If one would rate the rat at his true worth-

Practise catholicity.

Cheeseparings and a porkrind

Stock my house-good of their kind

But were they not, you would oblige me?

Is Plenty, multiplicity?

. . . . . . . . .

The Forgotten Poets Newsletter presents: new collections of out-of-print and obscure poetry, with a focus on compressed & fragmented 'free' and 'new' verse from the late-1800s & early-1900s, & the early history of English-language tanka & haiku. Verses are carefully selected & spaciously laid-out, adorned with illustrations & ornaments from the books & magazines they originally appeared in.