Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A Grave



When reading Marianne Moore, I liked how she added quotes to her poetry to give it more meaning.  But, I found it harder to read and comprehend her longer poems because of all of the quotes.  It often felt like I was trying to decode the poem.  The poem that grabbed my attention the most was A Grave.  What caught my attention was the line “the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.” (line 6).  This caught my attention because so many of the other philosophers that we have read this semester would have a much different look on mother nature’s oceans.  But Moore explores the the other side.  That quote got me thinking that, although the ocean is beautiful when calm on a day at the beach,  it also has a dark and mysterious side.  There are many parts of the ocean and creatures that live below it’s surface that we have not even explored.  
In line 20 Moore writes: “moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no such thing as death.  When reading this I just pictured boats, very small on comparison to the size of the ocean, scurrying all along the surface forgetting what is bellow them and that at any moment the water can turn resulting in death.  Thinking about Emerson and writing about man and nature, this poem helps me to believe that nature is a far more powerful source than we give her credit for.  In the many stories of man verses ocean, there are very few resulting in man with the win.  In this poem, it is nature that man is living in, not nature surrounding man.  It is nature that controls man and can ultimately take mans life.  Emerson wrote about different brooks or streams, but I would love to read his thoughts on the nature of oceans and were man stands.   

2 comments:

  1. Moore definitely seems to have a "thing," if you will, for the ocean. This comes out in "A Grave" and "The Fish" especially. The seriousness and philosophical nature of "A Grave" contrast interestingly with "The Fish" which has a much different format and observational feel than her other poems. They are near to each other in the anthology, which makes me wonder if they were written around the same time or if this just a coincidence.

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  2. I completely agree with you about the mysterious and dark side of the ocean. I particularly like your comparison to the other works we've read this semester about nature. It does seem that Emerson and Thoreau really focused on the positivity found in nature without ever really acknowledging the inherent danger in nature. For me, this doesn't make nature any less worthy of attention, but as small, weak humans I think we need to pay attention to this side of nature as well.

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