"I, too, dislike it": thus begins a poem about poetry that results in a clear portrayal of what poetry should be, and why it is important. Liking it is not necessary.
The five verse paragraphs of Marianne Moore’s poem, “Poetry,” function like a traditional 5-paragraph essay that asserts a thesis then offers evidence to support the thesis, while at the same time slyly showing the reader why poetry is genuine and worth “liking.”
The poem displays an unusual arrangement on the page: it does not look like a poem, yet is also does not resemble prose. Each verse paragraph has only two riming lines; lines six and seven rime in all paragraphs except for paragraph three, which has seven only lines and no rime, while the other four each have eight lines with the one set of rimes.
First Verse Paragraph: “I, too, dislike it”
Assuming that her readers already dislike poetry, the speaker claims she dislikes poetry, “too,” because there are more important issues that demand her time and attention. Yet, even while she is reading it “with a perfect contempt for it,” she finds that there are genuine things in it, after all.
After referring to poetry as “all this fiddle” and admitting that she bears a certain resentment for it, she has to concede that there might be something here that needs her time and attention.
Second Verse Paragraph: Because the things in poetry are useful
Poetry is not important because of the “high-sounding” interpretation that people claim for it, but simply “because [those things] are useful.” So poetry can be useful, but then the speaker qualifies that remark by designating the kinds of poetry that are not useful.
When poems are “so derivative as to become / unintelligible,” then it is not useful. And that fact is true for anyone who tries to read such derivative works. Readers, in general, do not appreciate “what [they] cannot understand.” For example, readers cannot appreciate “the bat / holding on upside down or in quest of something to // eat.” The speaker elides the second and third paragraphs together, as she continues to catalogue the things that readers cannot understand.
Third Verse Paragraph: “the immovable critic”
Readers do not appreciate nor understand “elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless / wolf under / a tree.” Still it is not fair “to discriminate against ‘business documents and // school-books’”; while poetry may contain almost anything, its importance differs from other writing, and if the reader is not discerning, he may mistake the purpose and therefore draw the wrong conclusions about purpose and function.
Once again, the speaker elides the two paragraphs, this time three with four. The form of this poem has to look very different from any other poem. Therefore, the poet has placed the lines unevenly.
Fourth Verse Paragraph: “literalists of / the imagination”
In the fourth verse paragraph, the speaker makes an important point about the direction that poetry was heading during the time of this poem’s inception, and that distinction has always been an important one. When poetasters spew forth their garbage and call it poetry, both poetry and potential readers of poetry lose. The speaker refers to poetasters as “half poets,” and the so-called poetry of “half poets” “is not poetry.”
Plus she asserts that the real poets “among us” must be “literalists of the imagination.” And until they are, their work will be examples of “insolence and triviality.”
Fifth Verse Paragraph: "imaginary gardens with real toads in them"
Real poetry must be like "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." And when readers encounter this kind of authentic poetry, they understand the true nature of poetry, and although the speaker never says so, she implies that once they truly encounter such genuine art, they will no longer dislike poetry. The desire for the genuine and the real has the tendency to create true interest.
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