Marianne Moore

I can see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it. Anyone could do what I do and I am the more grateful that those whose judgment I trust should regard it as poetry.

Someone at a poetry conference at which I was present complained of modern poetry and said he could not read it. He could only read "Dante;" and R. P. Blackmur said, "But we don't come in that big size." A pleasing statement; yet perspective occasionally does come in large sizes and Wallace Stevens in his book, The Necessary Angel, puts his finger on this thing poetry, it seems to me, where he refers to "a violence within that protects us from a violence without." We have it in Chaucer's heady epitome: "I think I thirst the more the more I drink" -- an intensity which finds a way of surpassing intensity -- in which "I think" means I know and understatement is emphasis. In poetry, metaphor substitutes compactness for confusion and says the fish moves "on winglike foot." It also says -- and for "it" I had better say Confucius -- "If there be a knife of resentment in the heart, the mind will not attain precision." That is to say, poetry watches life with affection. In poetry the light touch is the strong touch.