Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Raw Material + Genuinity (just made that up) = "Poetry"

Marianne Moore uses her poem "Poetry," as a device to tell her readers what she feels is wrong with poetry. What follows is a basic formula for what a keen interest in poetry should be composed of according to Moore. She feels as though poetry has become "so derivative as to become unintelligible" (3) due to most poets praising things for impossible reasons. For example, "her eyes shine like the sun," describes a praise that Moore would find absurd. She believes that things should be praised for their usefulness and their genuineness. For her, an eye is beautiful and deserves praise because it has the ability to "dilate" (5). She then lists off some examples of things that deserve praise because of their natural qualities, such as a horse taking a "roll," which means rolling through the dirt in order to get rid of lice.
She concludes the poem with a simple formula for the reader to follow if interested in true poetry. She claims that "raw materials," which one can assume refers to a poem in it's raw form, much like this one; void of any true syllabic form or meter. She states that in combination to this, one must have an interest in the genuine, also something that Moore praises throughout her poem. She claims that when these two things are combined the result is "poetry," which ironically enough is the name of the poem. This is poetry in it's most true and interesting form.

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