The Past is the Present

by Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore

If external action is effete
and rhyme is outmoded,
I shall revert to you,
Habakkuk, as when in a Bible class
the teacher was speaking of unrhymed verse.
He said; and I think I repeat his exact words;
"Hebrew poetry is prose
with a sort of heightened consciousness." Ecstasy affords
the occasion and expediency determines the form.





Last updated May 02, 2015