The Full Text of “Poetry”
1I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
2 Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers 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
7high-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
13eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
14 a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base-
15 ball fan, the statistician—
16 nor is it valid
17 to discriminate against "business documents and
18school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
19 however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
20 nor till the poets among us can be
21 "literalists of
22 the imagination"—above
23 insolence and triviality and can present
24for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we
25 have it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
26 the raw material of poetry in
27 all its rawness and
28 that which is on the other hand
29 genuine, you are interested in poetry.
The Full Text of “Poetry”
1I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
2 Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers 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
7high-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
13eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
14 a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base-
15 ball fan, the statistician—
16 nor is it valid
17 to discriminate against "business documents and
18school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
19 however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
20 nor till the poets among us can be
21 "literalists of
22 the imagination"—above
23 insolence and triviality and can present
24for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we
25 have it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
26 the raw material of poetry in
27 all its rawness and
28 that which is on the other hand
29 genuine, you are interested in poetry.
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“Poetry” Introduction
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"Poetry," by the American modernist poet Marianne Moore, grapples with what makes a poem important or worthwhile—or even a poem at all. Its speaker urges poets to take their craft seriously and not just try to show off or imitate other writers. Only when poets become "literalists of the imagination"—use their imaginative capacities to reveal or engage with something "genuine"—can they achieve something that, in the speaker's view, deserves to be called poetry. Moore first published "Poetry" in 1919, but published several other revised versions over the course of her life, including a controversial 3-line version in The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore (1967).
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“Poetry” Summary
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I don't like poetry either: there's so much else to care about besides all this nonsense. But if you read it with maximum skepticism, you'll find that there's ultimately room for something real in it. Hands that can grip things, eyes whose pupils can grow wider, hair that can stand on end if necessary—these matter not because
they can be explained in some sophisticated-seeming way, but because they have a purpose. Once they evolve to the point where their purpose is incomprehensible, the response is universal: we don't appreciate what baffles us—whether that's a bat roosting upside down or searching for
food, elephants shoving each other, a wild horse rolling in the grass, a vigilant wolf beneath a tree, the hardhearted critic growing annoyed like a horse bothered by fleas, the lover of baseball, or the specialist in numerical data. It's also unreasonable to show bias against business records and
textbooks; each of these things is significant. That said, one has to note a difference: when popularized by mediocre poets, the product doesn't qualify as poetry. Only when our poets can be "literalists of the imagination"—can set aside cheekiness and frivolity and put forward,
for close study, invented worlds that hold realistic ugliness as well as beauty—will we have true poetry. Until then, if you want poems to contain both the basic stuff of poetry (literary language, devices, etc.) and an authentic sense of reality, then you actually care about poetry.
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“Poetry” Themes
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The Nature and Purpose of Poetry
In “Poetry,” the speaker wrestles with what makes a poem worthwhile (or even count as a poem in the first place!). The speaker begins by admitting that they themselves get pretty frustrated with poetry—that all too often it seems pretentious and incomprehensible. But the speaker argues that such traits aren’t intrinsic to the art form. Rather, they result from poets mistakenly assuming that good poetry has to contain obscure, reader-alienating language about grandiose subjects. On the contrary, good poetry is sincere, honest, and, above all, contains “the genuine”—something real.
The speaker ironically begins the poem by saying that they, too, “dislike” poetry. They read poetry “with a perfect contempt for it” and acknowledge that there are more “important” things “beyond all this fiddle” (i.e., triviality). The speaker finds that a lot of poetry has nothing going on beneath the surface: it’s silly and tedious, all parlor tricks and sleight of hand. Yet the speaker’s frustration isn’t really with poetry as a whole but with poetry that's “so derivative as to become unintelligible.” In other words, the speaker is fed up with poets who imitate other poets so awkwardly that their verse turns into inaccessible nonsense. In this way, Moore's poem responds to a larger discussion about the pretentiousness of poetry.
Indeed, the speaker thinks there are far too many “half poets”—writers whose poems seem challenging or impressive on the surface, but have no real depth. And if people can’t “understand” poetry, the speaker declares, they can’t “admire” or appreciate it, either. Basically, an impenetrable poem is pointless. Poems, the speaker continues, need to be like “Hands that can grasp” and “eyes / that can dilate”—body parts we value “not because” they lend themselves to fancy “interpretation[s]” but because they’re truly “useful.” Likewise, the words and devices poets use should serve a purpose; they, too, should help readers feel and see things.
The speaker thus makes a case for poets being “literalists of / the imagination.” That is, they should use their imaginations in service of creating something “raw” and “real.” Poets should also be “above / insolence and triviality”; writing poetry is serious work and should be treated as such. This doesn’t mean poems can’t be playful or ambiguous—it just means that a poem should be more than a bag of tricks, a slick display of the poet’s technical skill. Such displays, the speaker suggests, are empty and meaningless, and they degrade people’s trust in poetry. Instead, poets should strive to “present […] imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” In other words, poets' invented worlds shouldn't be purely escapist—they should reflect plain, even ugly, realities. Though the “raw materials” poets work with are obviously artificial (words and literary devices can only gesture toward or approximate the real world), the poet’s goal should still be to express—and make readers feel—something “genuine.”
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Poetry”
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Lines 1-3
I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine."Poetry" begins with the speaker confessing their "dislike" of poetry. This is a rather ironic opening statement for a poem! Surely the speaker's relationship to poetry must be more complex than pure "dislike" if they're writing a poem about it. Still, these first four words are one of the most famous openings in 20th-century poetry, and they set up a nuanced, challenging reflection on the art form.
The speaker adds that "there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle." "Fiddle," in this context, means nonsense or deception. At the same time, it brings to mind the musical instrument, suggesting that musicality can be part of poetry's deceptiveness. Perhaps the speaker thinks poetry needs to do more than just sound nice.
Indeed, the speaker says they read poetry "with a perfect contempt for it." This is hyperbole; if the speaker really felt "perfect contempt" for poetry, why would they bother reading it? This exaggeration suggests that the speaker is feeling fed up with poetry, until, that is, they remember that there is "a place for the genuine" in it. The speaker is caught between feelings of poetry being a load of bologna and the belief that actually there is something real about it after all.
Line 1 is end-stopped, and feels straightforward and emphatic. Lines 2-3, however, are enjambed:
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.Notice how long line 2 is, and how the enjambment makes the line feel as if it's simply overflowing into the next one. The choice to break the line after a preposition makes the poem feel a little more prosaic; ending the line on an image or punchy phrase would be more expected. This unconventional choice signals, perhaps, that poetry doesn't have to be perfectly chiseled in order to convey something "genuine."
In fact, the poem's form is quite experimental. Like other modernist poets, Moore continually pushed the boundaries of what poetry was allowed to be in her era. The poem's use of syllabic meter (in which lines contain a certain number of syllables rather than stresses) feels simultaneously loose and structured, rhythmic but not tightly musical. Most of the poem's stanzas are sestets (but the third stanza is an exception), and its lines range anywhere from 4 to 22 syllables. The poet playfully flouts traditional ideas about what a poem should look or sound like, suggesting that style isn't ultimately what makes a poem matter.
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Lines 4-8
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are
useful. -
Lines 8-11
When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: -
Lines 11-15
the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician— -
Lines 16-19
nor is it valid
to discriminate against "business documents and
school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, -
Lines 20-25
nor till the poets among us can be
"literalists of
the imagination"—above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," shall we
have it. -
Lines 25-29
In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
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“Poetry” Symbols
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Gardens and Toads
The speaker declares that poetry should be able to create "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." These gardens should be able to withstand the close "inspection" of readers and critics. Symbolically, gardens are associated with growth, beauty, harmony, renewal, and so on, whereas toads are associated with ugliness or humble plainness. Toads can even be dangerous (poisonous) as well as unsightly. Moore's standard, then, implies that poetry should be able to create beautiful imaginative worlds—but that beauty alone isn't enough. Those imaginative worlds should also reflect the ugly, dangerous, or just plain humble side of life. They shouldn't be purely escapist; they should be "imaginary" but feel "real."
Gardens can also symbolize the idyllic, as in the Greek myth of Arcadia or the biblical story of Eden. Moore's "toads," then, might be the rough equivalent of the serpent in Eden: symbols of the evil or danger that lurks even within paradise. Or they might reflect the comparable idea that death exists even in Arcadia (a popular theme in Western art and literature). In poetry, then, they are the elements that make the poet's imaginative vision feel grounded and "genuine."
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
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“Poetry” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Irony
"Poetry" ironically begins with the speaker claiming to "dislike" poetry. If they dislike poetry so much, the reader may wonder, then why are they writing a poem? This irony creates immediate intrigue and anticipation: the reader may continue reading just to find out more about this curious contradiction.
Ultimately, it becomes clear that it isn't really poetry that the speaker dislikes, but rather insincere "half poets" who are too busy showing off or mimicking other poets to make something of "genuine" value. When the speaker declares, "[T]here are things that are important beyond all this fiddle," they're implying that poems should correspond to something real in the real world—not become endlessly self-referential or overly involved in their own workings.
The speaker also uses hyperbole in the second line, saying that they read poetry "with a perfect contempt for it." Of course, if they really felt "perfect contempt" (i.e., scorn or disrespect) for poetry, why would they bother reading it at all? This exaggeration conveys the speaker's frustration with poets who don't take their craft seriously, while suggesting that such "insolence" (line 23) might completely alienate poetry's audience.
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Metaphor
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Repetition
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Allusion
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Enjambment
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"Poetry" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Fiddle
- Contempt
- Dilate
- High-sounding interpretation
- Unintelligible
- Derivative
- Immovable
- Statistician
- Discriminate against
- Phenomena
- Make a distinction
- Prominence
- Literalists
- Insolence
- Triviality
- Inspection
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Nonsense or deception.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Poetry”
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Form
"Poetry" consists of five stanzas, most of which are sestets (six-line stanzas). In the 1921 version shown here—one of several versions Moore published over the course of her career—the third stanza has only five lines. The poem doesn't follow a traditional form, and in many ways is quite experimental. In that way, it's characteristic both of Moore's poetry and the early 20th-century modernist movement. Its long, prosaic, heavily enjambed lines, cascading diagonally down the page, seem to push the boundaries of what a poem can look or sound like. Lines 14-15 even break in the middle of a word, a highly unusual kind of enjambment. These effects help illustrate the speaker's argument that nothing is outside the realm of poetry: not even "business documents" or "school-books."
While many of the poem's lines are long and wordy, others are very short. These shorter lines provide contrast and demonstrate the dynamic tools poets have at their disposal. All in all, the poem's experimental form reflects the speaker's desire to expand the definition of poetry, even while arguing that poems should above all engage with something "genuine."
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Meter
"Poetry" is written in syllabic meter, meaning that there are a certain number of syllables per line rather than a certain number or pattern of stresses. So, for instance, the first line of each stanza contains exactly 19 syllables—although subsequent lines are less exact. The second line of every stanza, for example, has between 19 and 22 syllables, except for line 25 in the last stanza, which contains only 14 syllables; the third line of each stanza has between 10 and 12 syllables, except for line 15 in stanza 3, which has only 7 syllables; and so on. (Moore revised "Poetry" heavily throughout her career, and some versions of the poem follow a more strict syllabic pattern than others.)
The overall effect of syllabic meter is that it feels more relaxed and unencumbered than accentual meter, but more structured and rhythmic than free verse. Its use here seems to reflect the speaker's philosophy: namely, that poets should take poetry more seriously, but shouldn't shy from the unconventional in their poems. Moore used syllabics often in her poems and helped popularize the technique in 20th-century poetry.
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Rhyme Scheme
Although there are some subtle end rhymes throughout the poem, "Poetry" doesn't follow a consistent rhyme scheme. In most stanzas, the fourth and fifth lines form either a perfect or imperfect rhyme: "eyes"/"rise," "what"/"bat," "of"/"above," "and"/"hand." The pattern breaks in the third stanza, however, which has only five lines rather than six. (These choices reflect Moore's various revisions of the poem: in an earlier version, this stanza had six lines, and "valid" rhymed with "did.") Meanwhile, the other lines in each stanza are unrhymed.
The poem's lack of a strict rhyme pattern contributes to its looser, more prosaic feel. It has some musicality, but it resists traditional poetic rhythms and sounds. It seems to want readers to question their assumptions about what belongs in a poem, so it avoids the orderly and predictable.
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“Poetry” Speaker
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The speaker of "Poetry" can be interpreted as Moore herself, since the poem directly addresses what the point of "all this fiddle" (poetry) is. The speaker is using a poem to confess their "dislike" of poetry, as well as their belief in its ability to express something "real" or "genuine," so it's safe to say the speaker and poet are one and the same.
That said, this isn't a poem about the speaker's life. It's about poetry! The speaker provides many opinions about the art form, but no personal detail. (Though the many animal references here—the "bat," etc.—reflect Moore's famous, lifelong love of animals.) The speaker believes pretentious "half poets" are turning the craft into a circus rather than taking it seriously. Basically, they're a poet who "demand[s]" that poetry be written in earnest.
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“Poetry” Setting
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The poem has no physical setting; it takes place entirely in the speaker's mind as they express their frustration and hopes for poetry. When they do point to the physical world, it is only as an example of the "raw material" the poet has at their disposal. This material includes not only traditional poetic inspiration, such as the world of animals and nature, but also "the base- / ball fan, the statistician," and "business documents and / school-books." Basically, the speaker argues that nothing is off-limits to poetry, as long as it's used in service of something "genuine," something that matters.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Poetry”
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Literary Context
One of America's most recognizable poets, Marianne Moore wrote "Poetry" in 1919, a couple of years before the publication of her first book. She would go on to revise the poem many times, and famously cut all but the first three lines in her 1967 The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore. This radical revision spurred controversy among readers who knew and admired the original poem.
In a 2009 Slate article, poet Robert Pinsky reflects on Moore's "Poetry":
Moore, as I understand her project, champions both clarity and complexity, rejecting the shallow notion that they are opposites. Scorning a middlebrow reduction of everything into easy chunks, she also scorns obfuscation and evasive cop-outs. Tacitly impatient with complacency and bluffing, deriding the flea-bitten critic, unsettling the too-ordinary reader, she sets forth an art that is irritable, attentive, and memorably fluid.
Beyond this poem, too, Moore's work is known for its keen intelligence, meticulous and almost scientifically precise descriptions, and diligent observations of both the human and animal world. Moore also frequently incorporated vastly different kinds of quotation in her work, so that many consider her the inventor of "collage" poetry. "Poetry," which challenges poets to write more "genuine" poetry while still demanding that poetry be rigorous and innovative, showcases all of these inclinations.
Moore is generally considered a modernist poet, alongside such contemporaries as T.S. Eliot, H.D., William Carlos Williams, and Ezra Pound. The Imagists, in particular, considered her their own, but Moore distinguished her work from theirs in that she still valued meter and rhyme in her work—even though she thought there was much more to poetry than its ability to sound like poetry. In fact, Moore skillfully walked the line between traditional and untraditional, finding ways to innovate within familiar structures. For instance, her famous use of syllabic meter (where lines contain a set number of syllables rather than accents) was uncommon in the English tradition, but in Romance languages was quite ordinary. For her own part, Moore considered the poet Edith Sitwell an enormous influence on her interest in and experimentation with rhythm. Later, Moore became a friend and mentor to Elizabeth Bishop, whose style drew on Moore's in some ways.
Though her work gained steadily in popularity over the course of her lifetime, Moore distanced herself from the literary scene. She had literary friends who went out of their way to help her get published, yet she continued to turn to her mother for revision advice. All in all, Moore was deeply conflicted about poetry and often preferred baseball-watching and museum-going to the literary world in which she became a recluctant star. "Poetry" speaks clearly to this ambivalence, as the speaker admits that they—like many people—"dislike" poetry, but argues for the importance of authentic and disciplined verse.
Historical Context
"Poetry" was first published in 1919, a year after the end of World War I and a year before the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women in the United States the right to vote. Moore was active in the women's suffrage movement; she wrote letters to local newspapers, sometimes submitting anonymously and other times using a pseudonym. But the poem itself makes no direct reference to these seismic historical events; instead, it focuses wholeheartedly on the nature and purpose of poetry.
At the same time, the context of WWI, women's suffrage, and other events of the period (such as the 1918-1920 flu pandemic) lend real gravitas to the speaker's statement that "there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle." Moore was profoundly aware that poetry can seem rather silly—even pretentious—in the face of more pressing "phenomena." Yet at the end of the day, she was pulled back to poetry again and again as a mode for "genuine" expression. It might not be the most important thing in the world, "Poetry" argues, but it serves a real purpose.
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More “Poetry” Resources
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External Resources
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Revising "Poetry" — Read about Moore's complicated relationship to her own poem, including her many revisions over the years.
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A Reading of the Poem — "Poetry" read aloud by actress Kathy Bates.
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A Biography of the Poet — Learn more about Marianne Moore at the Poetry Foundation.
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The Purpose of Poetry — Moore isn't the only poet to try to define what poetry is and why it's important. Here are 20 other poets on the same subject.
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Marianne Moore: A Reluctant Poet — Learn more about the fascinating figure who "prefer[red] baseball, museums and circuses to literature."
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A Moore Documentary — Watch a short film on Moore's life and work.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Marianne Moore
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