MARIANNE MOORE

                                            Born :- November 15, 1887  Kirkwood Missouri,U.S.
                           Died :-  February 5, 1972  New York City U.S.
                                                   

Biography     

      Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor John Milton Moore and his wife, Mary Warner. Before Moore was born, her father suffered a nervous breakdown and Moore never got to meet her father. She grew up in her grandfather's household until 1894 when John Riddle Warner passed away. In 1905, Moore entered Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and graduated four years later with a B.A. and majored in history, law, and politics. She taught at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, until 1915, when Moore began to publish poetry professionally.Moore came to the attention of poets as diverse as Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H.D., T. S. Eliot, Mina Loy, and Ezra Pound beginning with her first publication in 1915. From 1925 until 1929, Moore served as editor of the literary and cultural journal The Dial. This continued her role, similar to that of Pound, as a patron of poetry; much later, she encouraged promising young poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery and James Merrill. In 1955, Moore was informally invited by David Wallace, manager of marketing research for Ford's "E-car" project, and his co-worker Bob Young to provide input with regard to the naming of the car. Wallace's rationale was "Who better to understand the nature of words than a poet?" On October 1955, Moore was approached to submit "inspirational names" for the E-car, and on November 7, she offered her list of names, which included such notables as "Resilient Bullet", "Ford Silver Sword", "Mongoose Civique", "Varsity Stroke", "Pastelogram" and "Andante con Moto." On December 8, she submitted her last and most famous name, "Utopian Turtletop." The E-car was finally christened by Ford as the Edsel.

Career :-

      Moore came to the attention of poets as diverse as Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H.D., T. S. Eliot, Mina Loy, and Ezra Pound beginning with her first publication in 1915. From 1925 until 1929, Moore served as editor of the literary and cultural journal The Dial. This continued her role, similar to that of Pound, as a patron of poetry; much later, she encouraged promising young poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery and James Merrill .Moore came to the attention of poets as diverse as Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H.D., T. S. Eliot, Mina Loy, and Ezra Pound beginning with her first publication in 1915. From 1925 until 1929, Moore served as editor of the literary and cultural journal The Dial. This continued her role, similar to that of Pound, as a patron of poetry; much later, she encouraged promising young poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery and James Merrill.
     In 1933, Moore was awarded the Helen Haire Levinson Prize by Poetry. Her Collected Poems of 1951 is perhaps her most rewarded work; it earned the poet the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and the Bollingen Prize. Moore became a minor celebrity in New York literary circles. She attended boxing matches, baseball games and other public events, dressed in what became her signature garb, a tricorn hat and a black cape. She particularly liked athletics and was a great admirer of Muhammad Ali, for whose spoken-word album, I Am the Greatest!, she wrote liner notes. Moore continued to publish poems in various journals, including The Nation, The New Republic, and Partisan Review, as well as publishing various books and collections of her poetry and criticism.

Moore corresponded with Ezra Pound from 1919, even during his incarceration. She opposed Benito Mussolini and Fascism from the start and objected to Pound'santisemitism. Moore herself was a conservative Republican and supported Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932. She was a lifelong ally and friend of the American poet Wallace Stevens. See for instance her review of Stevens's first anthology, Harmonium, and in particular her comment about the influence of Henri Rousseau on the poem "Floral Decorations for Bananas'".

Works:-

Poetry:-

• The Pangolin, and Other Poems. Brendin, 1936.
• What Are Years and Other Poems. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941.
• Nevertheless. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1944.
• Like a Bulwark. New York: Viking Press: 1956.
• O to Be a Dragon. New York: Viking Press, 1959.
• The Arctic Ox. London: Faber and Faber, 1964.
• Tell Me, Tell Me: Granite, Steel, and Other Topics (poetry and prose). New York: Viking Press, 1966.
• The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967.

Essays:-

• Predilections. New York: Viking Press, 1955.

Plays:-

• The Absentee: A Comedy in Four Acts (Based on Maria Edgeworth’s Novel of the Same Name). New York: House of Books, 1962.

Translations:-

• Rock Crystal: A Christmas Tale. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945.
• Selected Fables of La Fontaine. Faber and Faber, 1955.

      Over the 60 years that Moore worked as a writer, she won acclaim, awards, and honorary degrees. She is one of the very few poets to have received the “triple crown” of poetry, winning the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Bollingen Prize. Her multitude of awards include the Dial Award, the Helen Haire Levinson Prize, the Ernest Hartsock Memorial Prize, the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Medal, the M. Carey Thomas Award, the Poetry Society of America Gold Medal Award, the Brandeis Award for Poetry, and the MacDowell Medal. Some of her fellowships include the Academy of American Poets Fellowship and the Guggenheim Fellowship. She received honorary degrees from Wilson College, Mount Holyoke College, Long Island University, New York University, St. John’s University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Smith College, and the PrattInstitute.