In the Interest of Attribution

"Bitch, please." Thanks for the photo, www.eleganthack.com

The title of this blog is also the title of a poem by the bitchin' poetess Marianne Moore. It was the title of that before it was the title of this.

Miss Moore wrote often in a syllabic style, establishing a new stanza form in each poem. A pretty neat way to work: rigorously formal but not slavishly inflexibe. Here's an example:

Like a Bulrush

Or the spike
of a channel marker, or the
moon, he superintended the demolition of his image in the
water by the wind; He did not strike

them at the
time as being different from
any other inhabitant of the water; it was as if he
were a seal in the combined livery

of bird plus
snake; it was as if he knew that
the penguins were not fish and as if in their bat-blindness, they did not
realize that he was amphibious.

Fear not the weird lineation and lack of capitals. This is a poem about a seal. Miss Moore wrote often of animals; her mother once said (according to Elizabeth Bishop, in response to a different poem, Nine Nectarines & Other Porcelain), "I am so glad that Marianne has decided to give the inhabitants of the zoo...a rest."

Miss Moore had this to say of critics:

...If he must give an opinion, it is permissible that the
critic should know what he likes. Gordon
Craig with his "this is I" and "this is mine," with his three
wise men, his "sad French greens" and his Chinese Cherry--Gordon Craig, so

inclinational and unashamed--has carried
the precept of being a good critic to the last extreme...

From Picking and Choosing. Miss Moore knew from criticism; she made her living reviewing books and editing various literary magazines. Her wise words will bear on this blog, which is going to be a bunch of different things (bear with, please).

Folks, that is some bear shit in the sand in Michigan.

I've embarked on National Playwriting Month 7 days early (yes, I started three days ago; I hope to finish 7 days early), and I'm going to post something on this blog every day, in order to keep myself on task. Miss Moore's thoughts on criticism are relevant because I probably will talk about my play infrequently, instead using that playwriting process as a way to look at related processes: acting, reading, directing, thinking, talking...

That little blurb (an inadequate representative, really, of Miss Moore's poem) is also relevant because Gordon Craig was a great family physician of the early 20th century theater, a true general practitioner: actor, author, director, critic, surgeon.

"I'm a dude, y'all." Thanks, WikiP.

I don't pretend to the expertise of Mr. Craig or Miss Moore (though obviously I do have my pretensions). I'm a senior at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. I'm in the process of applying to graduate schools for an MFA in dramatic writing. I like Sam Cooke and I like cooking, and I'm sure I'll find things to say about those things in the near future. Here's the first poem Marianne Moore ever wrote, composed in 1895 (I think she was 8?):

Dear St. Nicklus;

This Christmas morn
You do adorn
Bring Warner a horn
And me a doll
That is all.