Marianne Moore

It has memory's ear
that can hear without
having to hear.
Like the gyroscope's fall,
truly unequivocal
because trued by regnant certainty,

it is a power of
strong enchantment. It
is like the dove-
neck animated by
sun; it is memory's eye;
it's conscientious inconsistency.

Do the poet and scientist not work analogously? Both are willing to waste effort. To be hard on himself is one ...of the main strengths of each. Each is attentive to clues, each must narrow the choice, must strive for precision. As George Grosz says, “In art there is no place for gossip and but a small place for the satirist.” The objective is fertile procedure. Is it not? Jacob Bronowski says in The Saturday Evening Post that science is not a mere collection of discoveries, but that science is the process of discovering. In any case it’s not established once and for all; it’s evolving.

"Wolf's wool is the best wool, but it cannot be sheared, because the wolf will not comply. With knowledge as with wolves' surliness, the student studies voluntarily, refusing to be less than individual. He "gives his opinion and then rests upon it"; he renders service when there is no reward, and is too reclusive for some things to seem to touch him; not because he has no feeling but because he has so much."

'Hebrew poetry is, prose with a sort of heightened consciousness' Ecstasy affords the occasion expediency, determines the form

Blessed is the man who “takes the risk of a decision” — asks himself the question: “Would it solve the problem?
Is it right as I see it? Is it in the best interests of all?

I have learned more from Ezra Pound about writing than from anyone else.

To have misapprehended the matter is to have confessed that
one has not looked far enough.

Tell me, Tell me where might there be a refuge for me
from egocentricity
and its propensity to bisect, mis-state, misunderstand
and obliterate continuity?

Your thorns are the best part of you.

Might verse not best confuse itself with fate?

I don't consider In Distrust of Merits a poem. It's just a burst of feelings. It's emotion recorded, a 'haphazard form ' a protest.

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

When one is frank, one's very presence is a compliment.

Poetry
...
... a place for the genuine,
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise

Appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.