Poet Spotlight: Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore was born on November 15, 1887 in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of a Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. The daughter of an absent, inventor father, John Milton Moore, and his wife, Mary Warner, Moore grew up in her grandfather's home until she left for an education at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.

With the publication of her first work in 1915, Moore garnered attention from poets such as Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H.D., T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. Her poetry falls under the modernist category, along with works by W.H. Auden, Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats, and Ezra Pound, and is known for its irony and wit. Moore's poetry earned her many prestigious awards, such as the Helen Haire Levinson Prize for Poetry, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize.

Moore spent her life encouraging younger poets to pursue their dreams. She worked with many poets during their younger years, including Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, and James Merrill. Through her poetry, she became something of a superstar; making appearances in exclusive New York City social circles, boxing matches, baseball games, and other social events. She was a particular fan of Muhammad Ali and wrote the liner notes for his spoken word album, I Am The Greatest.

Moore died on February 5, 1972, at the age of 84, after a series of strokes.

Without further ado, here is Moore's poem, "To a Steam Roller," and be sure to check out Poetry For Beginners for more great lessons and examples of poetry through the ages.

The illustration
is nothing to you without the application.
You lack half wit. You crush all the particles down
into close conformity, and then walk back and forth on them.

Sparkling chips of rock
are crushed down to the level of the parent block.
Were not 'impersonal judgment in aesthetic
matters, a metaphysical impossibility,' you

might fairly achieve
it. As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive
of one's attending upon you, but to question
the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.