Moore Questions

Moore’s critical essay in verse, “Poetry” (1921), plays the devil’s advocate by forcing the art to prove itself. Begin your analysis of this poem by reflecting on the below: • The poem names types of response composed in an “if . . . then” style: “Hands that can grasp, eyes / that can dilate, hair that can rise / if it must . . .” What are the if/then responses, and what do they mean? • In line 18, Moore reaches a pivotal point in the discrimination between poetry and what with the declaration that “One must make a distinction”? What conclusion can the reader draw from the necessity the poet sees in this distinction? • Moore calls for “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,” an image freighted with her expectations of “raw material” that she labels “genuine.” Explain the diction in these lines. • Why does the speaker dislike poetry? Is this an apology? If not, what is it?