Poetry in an Prosaic World: Marianne Moore

¶ … Poetry in an Prosaic World:

Marianne Moore and Rafael Camp's Metapoetic Texts on the Form

Both the first lines of "Poetry" by Marianne Moore and the title of the poem "The Next Poem Could Be Your Last" by Rafael Campo startle the reader from a moment of literary complacency into a new point-of-view about the language. "I too dislike it," says Moore, regarding the subject of poetry. How could a poet dislike her media, the reader is suddenly provoked to ask? The words jolt the reader from the page and force a pause.

This sense of pausing in between thoughts is reinforced by the rendering of the poem itself, on the printed page spread out before the reader. Even the sight of the poem, therefore, causes a complementary questioning of Moore's assertion. The poem makes use of considerable white space, breaking up continuous lines of thought that in speech would be seamlessly rendered. Even the visual texture of the poem, after its initial line and first mid-sentence line break, notes that the poet is constructing a bit of a game with the reader. Only though use of poetic enjambment technique can the meaning of why the poet dislikes the medium of poetry itself can be understood.

The Next Poem Could Be Your Last," by Rafael Campo is arresting before the reader even makes note of the first line. The title suggests in the mind of the reader the phrase that this next breath could be one's last. This may also seem to deflate the poetic project, making the reading of the poem a joke, in comparison to such serious tasks as breathing. But equally plausibly, the analogy of reading poetry with breath taking is a vital claim for the necessity of the poetic medium even in modern, prosaic times. Human life is short, the title suggests, and human expression must be short to make full use of the brevity of existence. Only poetry, a notably brief medium in its lyric form, can thus fully give expression to the brevity of the human existence and the intensity of the thoughts that come with every human breath.

In contrast to Campo's later work, Moore's poem is a more thoughtful claim for the importance of poetry, although she does assert the importance of poetry eventually over the course of her poem, most forcefully in the last stanza. She is, however, a bit more coy and subtle in her argumentation and poetic suggestion than "The Next Poem May be Your Last" author. Regardless, her poem and the argumentative structure of her poem, like Campo's, can be read as an example of a kind of metapoetry. Metapoetry, like metafiction, could be said to be a kind of verse that is a musing and a discourse over the nature of poetic structure itself.

Both writers are dealing with a world where the need for poetry, unlike in ancient times, is not assumed but constantly must be justified. What about this literary form that, unlike even nonfiction or fiction, appears to do no real work in the world, is so difficult and to some, so unrewarding to understand? Only poetry suggests Campo, in his opening title and in his poem, makes such spare and vital use of language and the metaphorical associations and connections of language to communicate in an economical and elemental level. Only poetry, suggests Moore, constantly seeks to justify itself and its existence, and that is why it is so important.

Moore begins her work with a suggestion that the reason many students and modern reader dislikes poetry is the sense of unreality it conveys about the material world. She echoes the common refrain of many adolescents, why can't the author just say what he or she means, when they are forced to encounter a poetic work in class.

Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in

3 it after all, a place for the genuine.

4 Hands that can grasp, eyes

5 that can dilate, hair that can rise

6 if it must, these things are important not because a.

In other words, one desires a true connection with reality, with hair and hands, rather than the literary representation thereof, that is rendered pregnant with meaning rather than the thing itself.

A high sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are

8 useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, 9 the same thing may be said for all of us, that we

10 do not admire what

11 we cannot understand: the bat, 12 holding on upside down or in quest of something to Eat," reads the next line, line thirteen, as if the poet caught up in her own rhetoric and tropes has suddenly forgotten about one of the most basic necessities of all. The poem thus contains a kind of a parody of the poetic life and style, the starving artist too caught up in his or her head and work to function in reality. Yet there is also a curious power to the language she uses. This takes the reader up in the poetic quest and thus renders the poetic life and struggle in a meaningful and vital way, for all of the poet's and the medium's ability to deflate its own sense of importance.

Ultimately, Moore's poem functions as an argument for poetry, in stressing how poetry still fulfills a need in the world. It also further stresses the poetic quest must not be a theoretical one, but a real one. Poetry, rather than holding the mundane details of life at a distance, can enable a writer and a reader to appreciate them.

24 for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have

25 it. In the meantime, if you demand on one hand, 26 the raw material of poetry in

27 all its rawness and

28 that which is on the other hand

29 genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

The interest in poetry springs up, not out of a desire to escape life, but to become more interested in life in a complete and vital way. When "dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry," she notes in her line nineteen. In other words, it is only poor poets who attempt to construct poetry out of the true tools and practical details of the physical and render such details into theoretical examples.