Poetry ... ... a place for the genuine, Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
“[Marianne Moore's definition of genuine poetry] -- Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
What I write could only be called poetry because there is no other category to put it. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
I never 'plan' a stanza. Words cluster like chromosomes, determining the procedure. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
In a poem the words should be as pleasing to the ear as the meaning is to the mind. — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
“I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic, forever, like the old… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
Not till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"-above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, "imaginary gardens… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
... imaginary gardens with real toads in them ... ... if you demand on one hand, the raw material of poetry in… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
“...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
“Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ...of… — Marianne Moore Copy Share Image
One writes because one has a burning desire to objectify what it is indispensable to one's happiness to express. — Marianne Moore Copy Share
Victory won't come to me unless I go to it; a grape tendril ties a knot in knots till knotted thirty times — Marianne Moore Copy Share
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint. — Marianne Moore Copy Share
“Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ...of the main… — Marianne Moore Copy Share
Camels are snobbish and sheep, unintelligent; water buffaloes, neurasthenic-- even murderous. Reindeer seem over-serious. — Marianne Moore Copy Share
When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful… — Marianne Moore Copy Share
I believe verbal felicity is the fruit of ardor, of diligence, and of refusing to be false. — Marianne Moore Copy Share
Only imagination that towers can reproduce evanescence and render rigidity flexible. — Marianne Moore Copy Share
In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric… — Marianne Moore Copy Share
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