Interview with: Marianne Moore, poet, author of "A Marianne Moore Reader."

This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.

This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.

Interview with: Marianne Moore, poet, author of "A Marianne Moore Reader."

Miller introduces Marianne Moore and her new book, A Marianne Moore Reader. Moore explains how she chose the book’s contents, a mix of poetry and her nonfiction writing. She and Miller discuss the reaction of audiences to her poems.

Moore reads “A Face”, “What Are Years”, “I May, I Might, I Must”, and her translation of La Fontaine’s fable, “The Hen Who Laid A Golden Egg.”

Moore says her rule for writing poetry is, “be affirmative... you cannot write out of a desire to get even with, or to harm, anyone else.” .

Miller asks Moore about poems she’s published on the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees, and her deep affection for baseball. “The Dodgers are still my favorites,” she says. She describes her only visit to Ebbetts Field; the sandlot games of her childhood; her reaction to the Dodgers’ departure from Brooklyn; and her current favorite players.

Miller notes the new book includes Moore’s correspondence with the Ford Motor Company (which had invited her to propose names for its new models). Moore calls advertising “a very great art” and says she regrets not offering additional names.

Moore describes the differences between writing poetry and prose: “I think prose is much harder to contrive.”



WNYC archives id: 72850

WNYC archives id: 72850