Marianne Moore’s Ghost Revisions

The Rosenbach Museum and Library contains The Marianne Moore Library (MML), the largest collection of Marianne Moore’s personal objects and literary papers. Among these objects and papers are the poet’s personal copies of each of her published books. One of the first observations to be made about Moore’s revising method is her habit of revising on copies of her books from her first publication, Poems (1921), through her final publication, Complete Poems (1967), often neatly writing in an updated word or phrase in small cursive handwriting. Indeed, her lifelong habit of using published texts as sites of revision began with Poems (1921) not long after it was published. To date, I have not found a study that addresses these revisions made upon her own copies of her books, especially Poems (1921) and both editions of Observations (1924 and 1925). In order to better understand Moore’s revision process in her early years before becoming editor of The Dial, their curious presence becomes a prerequisite for reading and positing a chronology to the revisions on her manuscripts and typed scripts of her other early poetry. This essay intends to explore the revisions that Moore made on her two copies of Poems (1921) and on Observations (1924).

Juvenal: Satires Book V

Juvenal’s fifth and last book of Satires consists of three complete poems and one fragment. The poems offer a scandalised exposure of human folly and vice, but the poet also appears to be promoting the value of human life and the need to accept our lives without worshipping the false gods of money, power or superstition—and this is delivered in the hugely entertaining tones of a great master of the Latin language. Satires 13 and 14 both deal with the need to use money without being enslaved by avarice, Satire 15 is an astonishing description of the cannibalism perpetrated in a vicious war in Egypt, while the final unfinished poem in the collection looks from a worm’s-eye view at the advantages enjoyed by men enlisted in the Praetorian guard. The Introduction sets Juvenal in the history of Roman Satire, explores the style of the poems and also asks how far they can be read as in any sense serious, given the ironic pose adopted by the satirist. The text is accompanied by a literal English translation and the commentary (which is keyed to important words in the translation and aims to be accessible to readers with little or no Latin) seeks to explain both the factual background to the poems and also the literary qualities which make this poetry exciting and moving to a modern audience.

JACK LONDON, THE SOCIALIST DREAM OF A YOUNG POET.

Jack London began writing poetry in May 1897. From then on, the lyrical process, in the form of odd, single lines, stanzas and complete poems, would be present throughout his career as a novelist, essayist and short-story writer. His most ambitiously prolific period was between 1897 and 1899, and by the age of twenty-three he had already composed and published most of his poems. London’s incursion into poetry was not fortuitous, but instead was a deliberate, personal decision to enter what he hoped would be a lucrative profession. This began in May 1897, with the poem “Effusion”, which launched what was to be a short but vibrant poetic career. London’s poetry is replete with a wide variety of issues and captures the most intimate and existential expression of a young man who aspired to make poetry the literary and vocational tool with which to become a crucial figure in the promising socialist movement of the fin de siècle.

An Afterword

This short collection was published as part of The Complete Poems of Robert Frost 1949, just two years after Steeple Bush. Now seventy-five years old, Frost continued to travel, teach, and receive honorary degrees. The two long poems, “Choose Something Like a Star” and “From Plane to Plane,” are rich in both observational and theoretical astronomical content, with references to such things as the chemical and physical properties of stars and the identities of the constellations comprising the Zodiac.