"Poetry" by Marianne Moore

"Poetry" by Marianne Moore


For many poetry comes easily to them whether it is in writing it or understanding it. For me? Not so much. I have never been able to quickly follow reading or writing poetry. When I read Marianne Moore's poem titled "Poetry," the first four words are something I can relate too, "I, too, dislike it." Now don't get me wrong, it isn't necessarily that I dislike poetry more that I just have a little more difficult of a time trying to decipher/interpret it. In my interpretation, the poem continues by describing the narrator's discomfort in reading and understanding poetry. But the narrator also states that, though they "dislike" it, when they are "reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine." My translation of this is though they read poetry in contempt, the narrator finds their own meaning for the poem. Many different interpretations are listed in the poem to describe what the narrator feels the poem is trying to relate to readers. Whether it is random interpretations such as "the bat holding on upside down" to "the base-ball fan, the statistician" the narrator cannot help but "admire what we cannot understand." My final translation of the poem "Poetry" is that the narrator believes that poems, when understood, are pathways to the imagination. With this I can agree because like other works of literature, whether it is a short story or a novel, poetry is an excellent key to the world of imagination. I rather enjoyed this poem because, if my interpretation is correct, it helped me realize that I am not alone in attempting to comprehend the often-times "unintelligible" writings of poetry.


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