~HAPPY 126th BIRTHDAY MARIANNE MOORE~

Thanks to terrible employees, I had to go into work earlier today instead of work on homework and this blog. So I am finally off work, at home, drinking and Vanilla Coke, and ready to talk about a new birthday girl. At this very moment of typing, our birthday girl Marianne Moore is 66,271,541 minutes old! If you calculate that into weeks, she is only 6,574 weeks old! Am I the only one who gets kind of disturbed by that? I know six thousand is a lot of weeks, but to me, the thought that we don't even live for that long kind of freaks me out. I did my age and I've only been around for 284 months. That just does not seem like a long time and within my lifetime I'll be lucky if I make it to 600! Maybe I look too deep into it? Maybe I should stop rambling on and get with our information on Marianne Moore? Yes? Okay I will. Lets learn about this writer! 

 

Photo © George Platt Lynes

 Everyone say hello to Marianne Moore! Today is her day and what an interesting woman she is. One of the ways I determine if I want to write about the person or not, is depending on their quotes. I love reading quotes from writers and authors and she has some pretty good ones that we will read in just a few moments. 

Moore was born on November 15, 1887, in Missouri. She attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and graduated with  a B.A. in 1909. After college she studied typing. In 1921, after having lived with her mother for some time in New York City, became an assistant at the New York Public Library. Because of this job, she came in contact with other poets such as William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. She wrote in and eventually became an editor for the Dial.

Her poems began being published into a magazine called Egoist, which was an English magazine. I'm not sure who or what this is, but I did read that "H.D." (if you could inform me on what or who this is I'd appreciate it) published Marianne Moore's first book, Poems, without her even knowing. Some accomplishments by her would be winning the Bollingen prize, the Nation Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.

One thing I'd like to say about her before I wrap this up with her quotes is that she was huge into baseball. I know that has nothing to do with American Literature, and I myself am not too fond of baseball, but found it extremely interesting that a female poet/writer was a huge fan. In fact, in 1968, she threw the first pitch of the season in the Yankee Stadium! That's pretty awesome in my opinion and just thought I should share!

Moore never married and eventually died in 1972 after suffering a series of strokes. Though I have never heard of this lady until now, she was a big deal as her entire living room has actually been preserved in its replica layout. You can see this at the Rosenberg Museum & Library in Philadelphia. I read that all her photographs, poetry drafts, and even a baseball that was signed by Mickey Mantle can be viewed by the public, among other things of hers. She was obviously a great well respected lady of her time and I'm very glad to of read up on her! Hopefully I will have time over the next few days to read a couple of her things and I'll either post on here or talk about it in the next IM Discussion Board!

Quotes From Marianne Moore

• "We are suffering from too much sarcasm."
• "Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time."
• "Superior people never make long visits." 
• "The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease."
• "You're not free until you've been made captive by supreme belief."
• "There never was a war that was not inward."
• "I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it."
• "Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt."             (my personal favorite)

until next time everyone....READ ON!