Marianne Moore

Poetry

The opening contradiction

Moore claims to dislike poetry while simultaneously writing it. This isn't false modesty—she's setting up her actual argument: that poetry must justify itself by containing something genuine, not by sounding impressive.

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important
beyond all this fiddle.

The opening contradiction

Moore claims to dislike poetry while simultaneously writing it. This isn't false modesty—she's setting up her actual argument: that poetry must justify itself by containing something genuine, not by sounding impressive.

Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it,
one discovers that there is in
it after all, a place for the genuine.

Physical specificity

Moore lists body parts that can perform actions: grasp, dilate, rise. She's not being poetic about bodies—she's treating them as functional tools. This matters because she'll argue poetry should work the same way: be useful, not decorative.

Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise

Physical specificity

Moore lists body parts that can perform actions: grasp, dilate, rise. She's not being poetic about bodies—she's treating them as functional tools. This matters because she'll argue poetry should work the same way: be useful, not decorative.

if it must, these things are important not be-
cause a
high sounding interpretation can be put upon them
but because they are
useful; 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. The bat,
holding on upside down or in quest of some-

The catalog strategy

Moore lists concrete animals and people (bat, elephants, critic, baseball fan, statistician) doing real things. She's proving her point: genuine material for poetry exists everywhere if you actually look instead of searching for 'poetic' subjects.

thing 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 – case after case
could be cited did
one wish it; nor is it valid
to discriminate against "business documents

Against dismissal

Moore explicitly defends 'business documents and school-books' as valid poetic material. She's rejecting the Romantic idea that only elevated subjects deserve artistic attention.

Physical specificity

Moore lists body parts that can perform actions: grasp, dilate, rise. She's not being poetic about bodies—she's treating them as functional tools. This matters because she'll argue poetry should work the same way: be useful, not decorative.

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,
nor till the autocrats among us can be
"literalists of

The paradox at the center

Moore coins 'literalists of the imagination'—poets who see what's actually there rather than what convention says should be there. The paradox: to be imaginative, you must be literal first. The famous phrase 'imaginary gardens with real toads' means: construct something artificial, but fill it with genuine observation.

The paradox at the center

Moore coins 'literalists of the imagination'—poets who see what's actually there rather than what convention says should be there. The paradox: to be imaginative, you must be literal first. The famous phrase 'imaginary gardens with real toads' means: construct something artificial, but fill it with genuine observation.

the imagination" – above
insolence and triviality and can present

The paradox at the center

Moore coins 'literalists of the imagination'—poets who see what's actually there rather than what convention says should be there. The paradox: to be imaginative, you must be literal first. The famous phrase 'imaginary gardens with real toads' means: construct something artificial, but fill it with genuine observation.

The paradox at the center

Moore coins 'literalists of the imagination'—poets who see what's actually there rather than what convention says should be there. The paradox: to be imaginative, you must be literal first. The famous phrase 'imaginary gardens with real toads' means: construct something artificial, but fill it with genuine observation.

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads
in them, shall we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on one hand,
in defiance of their opinion –
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness, and
that which is on the other hand,
genuine, then you are interested in poetry.
Source

Reading Notes

What Moore means by 'genuine'

Moore's famous opening—'I, too, dislike it'—seems to dismiss poetry, but she's actually dismissing bad poetry. Her real argument is that poetry must contain genuine material: things that are useful, observable, real. She's not anti-poetry; she's anti-pretense.

The poem distinguishes between two kinds of failure. First: poetry that sounds impressive but means nothing—what she calls 'derivative' work that becomes 'unintelligible.' Second: poetry that ignores actual experience in favor of what's conventionally 'poetic.' Moore's solution is radical for 1919: treat poetry like journalism. Look at what's actually happening (a bat hanging upside down, a critic twitching, a baseball fan) and describe it accurately.

The final test she offers isn't about beauty or emotion—it's about honesty. If you want 'the raw material of poetry in all its rawness' AND 'that which is genuine,' then you're interested in poetry. Notice: both conditions matter. Raw material alone is just journalism; genuineness without raw material is decoration.

Why 'imaginary gardens with real toads' works

[CONTEXT: Moore was writing in 1919, when modernist poetry was still fighting Romantic conventions about what poetry should be.] The phrase seems contradictory on purpose. An 'imaginary garden' is artificial—it's made, constructed, shaped by the poet's form and language. But the toads are real: actual observation, genuine detail, things that actually exist in the world.

Moore is saying that the form of poetry can be invented (imaginary gardens), but the content must be honest (real toads). This explains why she catalogs such unglamorous subjects: bats, elephants, critics, statisticians. These aren't poetic by convention, but they're real. Her point is that poetry's job isn't to make things beautiful—it's to make them visible. The imagination works best when it's grounded in what's actually there to observe.