About This Piece:
Marianne Moore’s economic, yet pointed use of language is beautifully effective in this poem. The form and syntax of this poem are reflective of its own meaning, as the image of a jellyfish which Marianne Moore paints is just as veiled as the language she uses to describe it. As with many imagist and modernist poems, I am drawn to the freedom of interpretation that such direct language is capable of producing - in such a small and focused image, we sense there are great and diverse implications. While this poem is about a jellyfish on the surface, essentially something which is difficult to grasp, it may be a self-referential statement on the aesthetic which Marianne Moore and many other modernists employ of vastness in brevity, and how that may be inherently difficult for an artist to capture and create, as well as difficult for an audience to identify. This poem has therefore guided me to compose music with the same ethos, which I found to be a novel, yet invaluable process.
Poem:
Visible, invisible,
A fluctuating charm,
An amber-colored amethyst
Inhabits it; your arm
Approaches, and
It opens and
It closes;
You have meant
To catch it,
And it shrivels;
You abandon
Your intent—
It opens, and it
Closes and you
Reach for it—
The blue
Surrounding it
Grows cloudy, and
It floats away
From you.