Marianne Moore Biographer Talks Poetry, Family

“I needed to tell a story,” said Marianne Moore biographer Linda Leavell during her talk in the Houghton Library’s Edison Newman Room on Nov. 13. “Not just that Marianne Moore is an important poet. [Sue Grafton] said, ‘This is Marianne Moore’s life, but it’s your story. So what’s your story about Marianne Moore?’”

Leavell, a Beinecke Fellow at Yale University known for her biographical works “Marianne Moore and the Visual Arts: Prismatic Color” (1995) and “Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore” (2013), spoke extensively about Moore’s development as a writer, emphasizing the effect of Moore’s family on her writing. The talk paralleled a visit made by Moore herself to Harvard in 1954, during which she gave a poetry reading, was served beer and pretzels, and dined with a cousin of T.S. Eliot at the Faculty Club.

“Marianne Moore became the important poet she was because of her resistance and her survival of her very oppressive mother,” Leavell said. “What I needed to do in this book was to tell the story of Moore’s family.”

Leavell’s detailed research showed in her numerous anecdotes throughout the talk. She described the Moore family dynamic in great detail and highlighted its importance in shaping Moore’s poetry. “After they read ‘The Wind in the Willows,’ [Marianne and her brother Warner] adopted those names,” Leavell said. “Marianne was ‘Rat’ or ‘Ratty,’ the scribbler of verses. Warner was Badger, and [their mother] Mary was Mole, the home-loving mole. I found this so captivating.... But as I read, I thought—there’s something a little eerie about this. The creepy thing was that Mary Moore wanted her children to stay children. She didn’t want them to grow up. She imagined them all living together for the rest of her life.”

Leavell said that this cloistering of the Moore children had an oppressive impact. However, the siblings dealt with it in different ways: while Warner decided to pack up and leave the family, Moore’s only sanctuary was her poetry.

“After writing my first draft, I felt that I knew Mary Moore and Warner Moore,” Leavell said. “But I still didn’t really feel like I knew my main character because she didn’t talk about her life and her feelings as much as the other two did. So then I turned to her poetry. And that’s where I think her emotion lies. That was her outlet.”

In response to the historical criticism that Moore’s poetry is “unfeminine” and “cerebral,” Leavell quoted Moore’s poem “Silence”: “The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; / not in silence, but in restraint.”

Leavell was received well by the audience—her anecdotes were often met with chuckles and grins by the attending group of writers, poets, and a few college students.

The significance of woman writers and biographers was also heavily discussed. During the talk’s question-and-answer session, New England Conservatory Poet-In-Residence Ruth Lepson said, “It’s gratifying to hear a woman introduce a woman introduce a woman writing about a woman.” referring to the introductory remarks made by Woodberry Poetry Room Curator Christina Davis and Widener Research Librarian Odile Harter, as well as Linda Leavell’s talk on Marianne Moore.

Notably, the Poetry Room shared a rare recording of a “bad poetry reading” by Moore, in which Moore’s light self-deprecation can be heard at the recording’s end. This disconnect between Moore’s confident voice in her poems and her often shy mannerisms resonated with the audience.

“It’s a complicated relationship in the sense that [Moore] is an esteemed poet but deeply anxious about [appearing publicly] and coming to Harvard,” said Bonnie Costello, a professor at Boston University who has written on Moore. “She had a presence in her poetry that had a certain kind of deliberateness and directness about it…. It’s a very assertive poetry…. So you wouldn’t necessarily expect her to be in terror of the event or unsure of herself.”

The talk covered Moore’s gradual development and shift from a sheltered, anxious young woman to one who became more whimsical and confident in herself. “I think she realized that she suffered and she missed something by her loyalty to her mother,” Leavell said. “That it cramped her life. But when she did [make public appearances], she felt liberated, I think. And as she grew older she developed charisma—vulnerability and strength and proficiency and innocence, and audiences loved her.”