She said it: Why I love poetry

Poetry
by Marianne Moore

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
aaaaaaall this fiddle.
aaaReading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
aaaaaadiscovers in
aaait after all, a place for the genuine.
aaaaaaHands that can grasp, eyes
aaaaaathat can dilate, hair that can rise
aaaaaaaaaif it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
aaaaaathey are
aaauseful. When they become so derivative as to become
aaaaaaunintelligible,
aaathe same thing may be said for all of us, that we
aaaaaado not admire what
aaaaaawe cannot understand: the bat
aaaaaaaaaholding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
aaaaaawolf under
aaaa tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
aaaaaathat feels a flea, the base-
aaaball fan, the statistician--
aaaaaanor is it valid
aaaaaaaaato discriminate against "business documents and

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make
aaaaaaa distinction
aaahowever: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
aaaaaaresult is not poetry,
aaanor till the poets among us can be
aaaaaa"literalists of
aaaaaathe imagination"--above
aaaaaaaaainsolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
aaaaaashall we have
aaait. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
aaathe raw material of poetry in
aaaaaaall its rawness and
aaaaaathat which is on the other hand
aaaaaaaaagenuine, you are interested in poetry.