Ah, poetry. I have issues with poetry. As Marianne Moore (no relation) famously said, “I too dislike it.” But if I’m immersed in good poetry and feeling inspired, it’s easy enough to get high on poetry.
It’s the first form I ever had any success with. It is possible to be very obsessive with a poem and still reach a a point of completion. Or maybe satisfaction– a point when I read it over and over and think, well that will do.
Some favorites: Robert Hass’s “The Yellow Bicycle,” Raymond Carver, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Oliver. I suppose these are obvious choices.
Undergrad and graduate thesis were both poetry. I’ve published some, but really: I never meant to be a poet. I meant to write the kind of books where a reader could lose themselves for an extended period of time. Days, not seconds. I think I needed to mature in order to pull it off. Some of us are simply late bloomers.
But poetry persists, so here are some poems.
Alaska
You darkened the sky, wouldn’t
let in the sun; I lit
candles, placed them
at windows where their flames
glowed double. You
froze the air, dropped
temperatures well below
zero; I bought a parka
padded with down, covered
in Gore-Tex, knitted
bulky-weight sweaters. You
froze pipes; I lived without
them, hauling jugs of spring
water, showering at work,
watching the aurora
bend as I walked the path
to the outhouse. You
bred mosquitoes, sent
them in throngs so strong
they culled caribou; I burned
pyrethrin powder, placed
potted marigolds along
my porch; hung turquoise net
fabric sprayed with citronella
to curtain my privy. You
let the March sun
slicken the roads, sent
my truck in the ditch, ran
up my credit card; I lived
on the edge, patched my parka
with duct tape, left
the dent in the bumper. You
attracted the wrong sort
and they built a subdivision
where I once wandered amongst
birch trees, startled ptarmigan
when running, spied moose
when I skied. I thought
that I loved you. Wrote
you poems and planned
to buy land and build my
own house where
we’d live together, yes
in harmony, yes I
thought that, and now
it sounds so silly
because you
you were indifferent
and didn’t cry
when I left.
Copyright Ellen Elisabeth Moore, originally created as part of a 100 day project in 2017 and included in limited release self-published chapbook.
Stumped
Somebody made that fence. They cut the wood,
the slats, the posts where the slats fit, abut
end to end. I can’t name the tools-- ax? some
sort of plane? I’m making it all up. Made
up hand tools held in imaginary
hands, hefting and hitting. Maybe my fence
builder was mad. Mad at his brother, mad
at the weather, the damn politicians.
Itching for a fight, his digging bit deep,
hit rock bottom. But those weathered grey
horizontal wooden lines evoke a certain
continuity, a brother who walks over-- notices
the fence, understands the effort it takes-- to say
I’m sorry, let me carry that, you worked hard, rest now.
Copyright 2026 Ellen Elisabeth Moore