Marianne Moore and the Archives

Jeff Westover is Professor of English at Boise State University, where he teaches literature. He transcribed Marianne Moore’s Reading Notebook of 1930-1943 (VII.02.02) for the Marianne Moore Digital Archive. He is the author of The Colonial Moment: Discoveries and Settlements in Modern American Poetry, which was selected as an outstanding academic title by Choice magazine in 2005. The book uses postcolonial theory to analyze the work of Marianne Moore, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Hart Crane. More recently, he has published articles on Elizabeth Bishop, W. S. Merwin, and H.D.

• Introduction, Jeff WestoverPrimary Sources and Resources1 Postmarks and Watermarks: Reading through Marianne Moore’s Letters Aurore Clavier2 The Literary Digest, Moore’s Scrapbooks, and the Archive of Mass Print Bartholomew Brinkman3 The Poet’s Room as Archive Robert VolpicelliSex, Race, and Economics in the Archive4 Out-Casts and Stay-at-Homes: Marianne Moore, Arthur Mitchell, and LGBTQ Migration in NYC Elizabeth Gregory5 “His Shield”: Prester John, Amphibiousness, and Black Fugitivity in Marianne Moore’s Haile Selassie Poems Ryan Tracy6 Archives of Excess and “power over the poor”: Marianne Moore’s “The Jerboa” Linda KinnahanArchives and Meanings7 “Possible Meaning”: Marianne Moore’s Anagogical Reading of Rilke, Herbert, La Fontaine, and Hölderlin Luke Carson8 Questioning Categories to Revitalize Words: Meaning and Mottoes in the Poetry of Marianne Moore Jeff WestoverArchive as Product and Process9 “This Is How the Mind Works”: Marianne Moore and the Aesthetics of Notebooks Roger Gilbert10 Robert Duncan, “On Reading Marianne Moore”: An Introduction James MaynardTeaching and Learning in the Digital Archive11 The Marianne Moore Digital Archive: Teaching and Research Claire NasharOrigins of the Archive12 An Interview with Patricia C. Willis Karin Roffman

‘Marianne Moore and the Archives ultimately succeeds not as a masterful guide to Moore’s archives, but as a demonstration of how archives are co-created by authors, curators, scholars, and readers. By foregrounding method, materiality, and interpretive responsibility, the volume deepens our understanding of Moore’s poetry while offering transferable models for future archival scholarship.’Emma Felin, Transatlantica: Revue d'études américaines