Moore, Marianne (Craig)

(born Nov. 15, 1887, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.—died Feb. 5, 1972, New York City, N.Y.) U.S. poet.

She attended Bryn Mawr College and later settled in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her mother. After 1919 she devoted herself to writing, contributing poetry and criticism to many journals. She edited the influential journal The Dial (1925–29). Her poetry volumes include Observations (1924) and Collected Poems (1951, Pulitzer and Bollingen Prizes, National Book Award). In her highly disciplined poems she distilled moral and intellectual insights from close observation of objective detail, especially in the animal world, often in innovative stanzaic forms. In her much-anthologized “Poetry” (1921) she called for poems that present “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” In her late years the winningly eccentric Moore, in her cape and tricornered hat, became an icon of sprightly gentility.

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