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.
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-: 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?
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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.
