The painter Robert Andrew Parker collaborated with the
poet Marianne Moore on “Eight Poems,” published by MOMA in 1962. Here is his
reaction to Moore's home on West Ninth Street:
“A very fragile place, very fine, well-waxed, everything
treated carefully and shown with pride. She sent me a photograph of her desk
once. On it were a leopard made of bone with painted spots, an elephant with
his legs stretched out like a rocking chair’s, an early engraving of a
rhinoceros, some candles, a Russian icon, some brass boxes for stamps, some
bells, a photo in a round frame of her father. I saw a picture of Francis Bacon’s
studio once, ankle-deep in torn paper, rags, crushed tubes, cigarette stubs,
all sorts of filth. I thought how right and appropriate it was, all connected
to his work. I felt the same way about Marianne Moore’s house: everything had
to do with her work—the quality, the attention to detail, the perfection of it
all. And the smell of a particular furniture wax that indicates a rich,
well-ordered house.”
Reprinted from Poets on Painters, edited by J. D. McClatchy,
U. of California Press, 1988.
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Robert Andrew Parker, “Cow in Field I” |
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