WELCOME TO A BEAUTIFUL ZOO!
Home to the cryptic and fascinating animals, objects, and any other breathing or non-breathing things residing in Marianne Moore’s poems.
Please click Marianne’s face to visit my website!
This website features three poems by Marianne Moore (e.g. The Plumet Basilisk, Elephants, and The Wood Weasel) along with respective imitations for each. Preceding these originals and imitations is an in-depth section on Moore’s aesthetic philosophy, her poetic processes, and how she was both a typical Modernist as well as an anamoly.
This section focuses on two things: poetic tensions and “The Moore Truth.”
Marianne Moore’s poetry operates under numerous tensions between opposing forces. But instead of juxtaposing certain poetic elements (i.e. heralding the new and eschewing the old), Moore attempts to merge them together in order to create a distinct ideal for poetry’s progression. This distinct ideal is a method of obtaining a Truth, which can be thought of as “The Moore Truth.”
This “Moore Truth” is the intense accumulation and compression of temporal fact and evidence shoved into a structured and telling form. By manipulating the facts through emphasis, exemplification, metaphors, and unconventional language, Moore reaches a new truth which encompasses more than the physically seen. The “Moore Truth” is the exposure of the mysterious properties and the unnoticed complexities that are inherent in all ordinary things. This is what critics mean when they say Moore was a poet who had a penchant for making the anti-poetic into poetry.
Following the discussion, originals, and imitations is a reflection section on my own process, and how I grappled with following Moore’s prescriptions of poetic technique as I attempted to attain the “Moore Truth.”
I love this idea, I can’t wait to see the outcome!
We’ve talked about this in person, so I won’t go into too much detail here. For Friday, though, I’d like to see a preliminary bibliography of secondary works on Moore or other related topics (ecopoetics, for example) that you have consulted / will consult. Given all you plan to do with these poems, I think starting with 3 rather than 10 might be best.
You do an excellent job of presenting the research conversation you hope to enter and extend here. I particularly like the way you begin creating room for your argument by pushing back against a few key arguments here as you emphasize the status of scientific description / observation in the poems rather than letting interpretation lead always back to some moralizing lesson.
My big question has to do with the final project itself. Your idea seems to lend itself quite readily to a more traditional research paper; I’m still not quite seeing what the final project, as you imagine it here, might look like. Perhaps it will be easier to explain in person when we meet to discuss the project later in the week!
My project will be pretty visual while also having a textual element so I think it’s difficult to explain. It’ll be set up as a field journal.
A field journal is used to write observations, data, notes,
and drawings to document what was seen in the field. This is
important for
• identifying unknown species,
• documenting and recording observations, and
• learning more about the natural world.
I’ll have tentative sketches to show you whenever we meet. I guess it wasn’t that difficult to explain after all…I hope that clarified where I’m going with this.
The article “Beautiful Data” explains the importance and artistry of a field journal within science which maps onto Moore’s aesthetics. Field Notes on Science and Nature, edited by Michael Canfield, is also a good resource to examine the importance of a field journal to science and how it can be both accurate and artistic.