Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore

American poet.
Date of Birth: 15.11.1887
Country: USA

Biography of Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore was an American poet born on November 15, 1887 in St. Louis, Missouri. She developed an interest in biology while studying at Bryn Mawr College, which influenced her poetry as she often wrote about animals, plants, and birds.

Her first book of poems, "Poems," was published in 1921 by her friends without her knowledge. From 1925 to 1929, she served as an editor for "The Dial," one of the most prestigious American literary journals of that time. T.S. Eliot referred to her work as "a particle of that rare substance called contemporary poetry that is not ephemeral."

With the publication of "Selected Poems" in 1935, Moore emerged as one of the leading American poets. Her "Collected Poems" in 1951 received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She also published several critical articles, mainly collected in books such as "Predilections" (1955) and "A Marianne Moore Reader" (1961).

"The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore" in 1986 contains over 400 works, including essays, reviews, stories, notes, and annotations on book covers. Her translations of La Fontaine's fables were published in 1954 and 1955, and the "Complete Poems" were published in 1967.

Marianne Moore passed away on February 5, 1972 in New York. She believed that a poet should be a "literalist of the imagination," and her poetry was described as "imaginary gardens with real toads." She focused on peculiarities such as the armor of armadillos and the shoes of mountaineers, as well as ordinary activities like baseball and ancient artifacts, always recreated in a non-traditional way with precise details.

Her use of imagery and the montage of numerous quotations from various sources in the voices of diverse individuals were as unexpected as her poetic fabric. The meter of her lines, invented by herself, is strict and subtle, not immediately noticeable. The length of her lines is determined more by the number of syllables than the number of stresses. Her rhymes are never intrusive. Although Moore never flaunted the formal perfection of her poems, she is undoubtedly one of the most skillful masters of modern poetry.

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