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Marianne Moore [1887-1972] USA
Ranked #325 in the top 380 poets

Modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Republican.

Marianne Moore was born near St. Louis, Missouri, on November 15, 1887, where she  was raised in the home of her grandfather, a Presbyterian pastor.  Her Grandfather died in 1894, which meant that Moore and her family were forced to stay with other relatives, and in 1896 they moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 

Here she attended Bryn Mawr College whre she received her B.A. in 1909. After her  graduation, Moore studied typing at Carlisle Commercial College, and from 1911 to 1915 she was employed as a school teacher at the Carlisle Indian School.

1918 was the year that both Moore and her mother moved to New York City, and in 1921, she became an assistant at the New York Public Library. She began to meet other poets, such as William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, and to contribute to the Dial, a prestigious literary magazine. She served as acting editor of the Dial from 1925 to 1929. Along with the work of such other members of the Imagist movement as Ezra Pound, Williams, and H.D., Moore`s poems were published in the Egoist, an English magazine, beginning in 1915. In 1921, H.D.(Hilda Doolittle) published Moore`s first book, Poems, without her knowledge.

Marianne Moore was widely recognized for her work; among her many honours were the Bollingen prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. She wrote with the freedom characteristic of the other modernist poets, often incorporating quotes from other sources into the text, yet her use of language was always extraordinarily condensed and precise, capable of suggesting a variety of ideas and associations within a single, compact image. In his 1925 essay "Marianne Moore," William Carlos Williams wrote about Moore`s signature mode, the vastness of the particular: "So that in looking at some apparently small object, one feels the swirl of great events." She was particularly fond of animals, and much of her imagery is drawn from the natural world. She was also a great fan of professional baseball and an admirer of Muhammed Ali, for whom she wrote the liner notes to his record, I Am the Greatest! Deeply attached to her mother, she lived with her until Mrs. Moore`s death in 1947. Marianne Moore died in New York City in 1972.

Bio: courtesy of the Academy of American Poets

Imagism, Modernism, Others, Anti-meter

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1879-1955
USA
Wallace Stevens
→ praised Marianne Moore
1883-1963
USA
William Carlos Williams
→ praised Marianne Moore
1885-1972
USA
Ezra Pound
→ praised Marianne Moore
1888-1965
USA/ENG
Thomas Stearns Eliot
→ praised Marianne Moore
1920-1970
ROU/FRA
Paul Celan
→ translated Marianne Moore
1878-1914
USA
Adelaide Crapsey
← praised by Marianne Moore
1899-1932
USA
Harold Hart Crane
← criticized by Marianne Moore
1907-1973
ENG/USA
W H Auden
← (syllabic verse) influenced by Marianne Moore
1911-1979
USA
Elizabeth Bishop
← influenced by Marianne Moore
1932-1963
USA
Sylvia Plath
← influenced by Marianne Moore


WorkLangRating
No Swan So Fine
eng
15
Marriage
eng
3
Nevertheless
eng
1
Roses Only
eng
1
Silence
eng
1
To an Intra-mural Rat
eng
1
A Grave
eng
0
An Octopus
eng
0
He Made This Screen
eng
0
His Shield
eng
0
Peter
eng
0
Poetry
eng
0
Rosemary
eng
0
Spenser`s Island
eng
0
The Fish
eng
0
The Pangolin
eng
0
The Paper Nautilus
eng
0
The Past is the Present
eng
0
The Steeple-Jack
eng
0
To a Steam Roller
eng
0

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