If
remembered at all, Merrill Moore (1903-1957) is pigeonholed as one of the more
prolific and less accomplished Fugitive poets, the doctor who dabbled in
sonnets, analyst to Robert Frost and Robert Lowell. He was, certainly, a sport
of nature, a sonnet-machine whose lifetime output of fourteen-liners may have
exceeded 40,000. In 1938 he published M:
One Thousand Autobiographical Sonnets, followed by Clinical
Sonnets
(1949), Illegitimate Sonnets (1950), Case-Record from a Sonnetorium (1951)
and More Clinical Sonnets (1953) He called his
office the “sonnetorium.” I remembered my discovery of Moore forty years ago
thanks to another poet and a critic, all by way of a friend. On Monday, Nige wrote about his rereading of Keats and
Embarrassment by Christopher Ricks, perhaps the single most readable book
of literary criticism published in my lifetime. Read it and you’ll never think
about blushing in quite the same way. I pulled out the book again and read the
chapter “Somebody Reading,” in which Ricks quotes the wonderful letter Keats
wrote to his brother George and sister-in-law Georgiana on Sept. 20, 1819:
“Writing
has this disadvantage of speaking one cannot write a wink, or a nod, or a grin,
or a purse of the lips, or a smile law! One cannot put one's finger to one’s nose,
or yerk [OED: “a smart blow or stroke”]
ye in the ribs, or lay hold of your button in writing ; but in all the most
lively and titterly parts of my letter you must not fail to imagine me, as the
epic poets say, now here, now there ; now with one foot pointed at the ceiling,
now with another ; now with my pen on my ear, now with my elbow in my mouth.”
Rick
contrasts Keats’ understanding of the act of writing, its inadequacies and
joys, with the theorizing of a psychologist and a sociologist. He writes:
“Keats
set such store by the attempt to imagine a writer or reader because doing so
will release reading and writing from the inevitable anxieties of
solitude—narcissism, solipsism, lonely indulgent fantasizing. It is for such
reasons that many of us set such store by the public discussion of literature.
To write about literature, argue about it, teach it; these, though they bring
other anxieties, are valued because they can help to restore a vital balance of
private and public in our relation with literature.”
The
act of forever recalibrating the balance of inner and outer, private and
public, seems to be the essence of living with books, reading and enjoying
them, sharing our enjoyment and applying their lessons (on blushing, for
instance). So much remains unshared and interior – and it must. But so much is talked
and written about, in emails, blogs, book chat, book reviews and scholarly
articles. Ricks then quotes a sonnet by Moore written in 1941, “Eyes in
Libraries,” collected posthumously in Poems
of American Life (Philosophical
Library, 1958):
“I
observe peculiarities
In
the movements of the human eyes
Over
desks of special libraries.
“Eyes
there rove a bit more than is wise,
Often
show inquisitiveness or surprise,
Notice
gloves and shoes and socks and ties
And
even query whose and whats and whys.
“You
can notice peculiarities
In
the motions of the people's eyes
In
and near to public libraries.
“Men
and women go there to sit and read
But
they squirm and rove, survey each other
Not
as sister, quite, and not as brother,
But
more with nervous desire or anxious dread.”
Among
other things, Moore’s sonnet suggests the erotic crackle often felt in libraries,
the heightened sense of connection and possibility. Libraries, I’ve often
thought, are sexual places because “books are people talking about other
people.” Here’s another sonnet by Moore, “Books Are Men”:
“Millions
of people talking about other people
In
book-shop talk and literary reviews,
Passing
gossip, criticism, trade-news
“Like
church organs whose chimes are set in the steeple
To
scatter down when crowds congregate within
The
battle cries of unknown soldiers lost
In
wars lamenting the ultimate gain and cost
“Of
whether the right were good and evil were sin
And
who did just what thing in just what way,
Millions
of volumes dusty on millions of shelves
“And
everywhere dust, settling down and grey
On
faces that might have shown white in the bright moonlight
Somewhere
once, perhaps on a certain night.
Books
are people talking about other people.”