Picture caption and credit: I, too, throw it: Marianne Moore tossing out the first ball, opening day at Yankee Stadium. Photo: Bob Olen, 1968. Marianne Moore Collection, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia. (found in Google Public Domain)

Her style of poetry: Some is rhymed couplets such as, "Hometown Piece for Messrs. Alston and Reese." This was written for the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and published on the front page of the New York Times. This poem is found in The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore. Copyright �© 1961 Marianne Moore.

Her other poems I found to be more of a 'conversational free verse'. I will tease you with just the ending of her 1919 poem, simply titled, "Poetry," in hopes that you will be intrigued enough to go and read it for yourselves.
(excerpt courtesy of poets.org)

"In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry."

My "party" conversation with Marianne Moore constructed from my imagination, inspired by (and quoting) her poem, "Baseball and Writing," quotes by her and other facts I read in her biographies. (I spent a lot of time with her today, much to my pleasure.) My part of the "conversation" is in gold and hers is in blue. Consider the verses in black commentary and setting by myself, the author of this piece.

Interesting reading:

Baseball and Writing by Nancy Knutson The Iowa Review Vol. 17, No. 3 (Fall, 1987), pp. 164-166 Published by: University of Iowa http://www.jstor.org/stable/20156471

(courtesy of poets.org)
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/marianne-moore (her biography is great!)

Baseball and Writing

Marianne Moore, 1887 - 1972
.
(Suggested by post-game broadcasts)
Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement -
a fever in the victim -
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply?
Who is excited? Might it be I?

It's a pitcher's battle all the way - a duel -
a catcher's, as, with cruel
puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly
back to plate. (His spring
de-winged a bat swing.)
They have that killer instinct;
yet Elston - whose catching
arm has hurt them all with the bat -
when questioned, says, unenviously
"I'm very satisfied. We won."
Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We";
robbed by a technicality.

When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
the massive run need not be everything.
"Going, going . . . " Is
it? Roger Maris
has it, running fast. You will
never see a finer catch. Well . . .
"Mickey, leaping like the devil - why
gild it, although deer sounds better -
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
one-handing the souvenir-to-be
meant to be caught by you or me.

Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral;
he could handle any missile.
He is no feather. "Strike! . . . Strike two!"
Fouled back. A blur.
It's gone. You would infer
that the bat had eyes.
He put the wood to that one.
Praised, Skowron says, "Thanks, Mel.
I think I helped a little bit."
All business, each, and modesty.
Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer.
In that galaxy of nine, say which
won the pennant? Each. It was he.

Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws
by Boyer, finesses in twos -
like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre-
diagnosis
with pick-off psychosis.
Pitching is a large subject.
Your arm, too true at first, can learn to
catch your corners - even trouble
Mickey Mantle. ("Grazed a Yankee!
My baby pitcher, Montejo!"
With some pedagogy,
you�¢??ll be tough, premature prodigy.)

They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying
indeed! The secret implying:
"I can stand here, bat held steady."
One may suit him;
none has hit him.
Imponderables smite him.
Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it!
Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice,
brewer's yeast (high-potency-
concentrates presage victory

sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez -
deadly in a pinch. And "Yes,
it's work; I want you to bear down,
but enjoy it
while you're doing it."
Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
if you have a rummage sale,
don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh.
Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.
O flashing Orion,
your stars are muscled like the lion.

From The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore. Copyright �© 1961 Marianne Moore

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