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||> ==//Biography//==
 * == Marianne Moore  ==


 * Marianne Moore was born on November 15, 1887 near St. Louis, Missouri, she died eighty four years later on February 5,1972. Her father, John Mitlon, was an engineer, and her mother was a teacher at Metzger Institute, a private all girls school. She was brought up with her brother at her grandfather's house because her father was put in a mental institution. Moore attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She graduated in 1909 with a Biology and a Histology degree. Moore became a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School. In 1915 she began to have her poems published. Some of her poems were published in The Egoist, an English Magazine. Moore's style of writing was prose. She is known for her irony, imagery, language, and wit. She wrote" I inwardly did nothing," La Fontaine's Fables," "Collected Poems," and many, many more. She then died in New York in 1972.**
 * http://www.bookrags.com/biography/marianne-moore/** ||

Poetry links

 * * [|No Swan So Fine]
 * [|To a Steam Roller]
 * [|He Made This Screen]
 * [|Spenser's Island]
 * [|Baseball and Writing]
 * [|Scilence] ||>  ||

 Explication
Explication of "Scilence"

The poem titled "Silence" by Marianne Moore was taken from PoemHunter.com (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/silence/).

Smart People never stay in one place for long, like glass flowers that don't need little care. Like the self reliant cat who can catch her own food and enjoys solitude. True emotions show themselves in silence, or rather in restraint. The father wanted to remind her that there was always a place to come back to at home, even when she became distracted with her work throughout her life.

This poem does not rhyme, yet it has a certain sound to it. It uses similies like "self reliant like the cat" or "the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoe lace." It also uses personification like the cat or the flowers "enjoy solitude" and "can be robbed of speech."

The theme of the poem is a parent's advice to a young adult about superiority. The poem begins by stating that superior people never make long visits. This is ture. For superior people are important people and can become eailsy distracted by their work. They have much to do, are always on the go, or on a mission to reach their goals. This makes it unappelaing for recreational time. The poem moves on to compare and contrast a superior person to a cat. Cats are self reliant. Unlike a person of importance, they take care of themselves, need little attention, and enjoy solitude. On the other hand, a cat is always on the go and hunting throughout the night. The line "that takes it's prey into privacy," can be interpreted through the way a superior person enjoys claming their accomplishments and taking credit for the goals they have achived. The line about the mouse and its tail represents the competition.

They drag their prey back to their privacy and claims victory over the less superior. "They sometimes enjoy solitude, and can be robbed of speech by speech with has delited them." This can be interpreted by saying that by the time a they get themselves so wrapped up in their work, they become aware that they loose control of the ability to spend time doing recreational activities they used to enjoy. The mentioning of "not silence, but restraint," is simply saying that superior people have excelent self control. The last lines work its way back to the theme through saying "Make my house your inn, inns are not residenses." This is a simple offering from the parent letting them know, that no matter how distracted they get during their life, they can always come home. This offers a time of comfort and reassurence, to give a place of solitude, replenishment, and of course, silence. One important aspect of this peom was the quotes in general. They provided a detailed picture throughout the poem. A wonderful poem with well thought out advice, about how there is always time to speak, and there is always a time for silence.