Voices & Visions: Marianne Moore

Scholars have marveled at the paradoxes of Marianne Moore–how her verse can show such propriety amidst such caprice, or use such artifice to celebrate the natural, or seem so modern while being unabashedly old-fashioned. In fact, Moore’s “wild decorum” is an accurate reflection of her character and values, exalting a gusto (as she said) that gets things done without running roughshod, a propriety that refuses to wink, distort, or disdain. But for all this down-to-earth practicality, her long, artfully poised sentences and strict but arbitrarily syllabic stanza forms also force us to a self-conscious awareness of the language itself.