Letters of Note

Marianne Moore by Richard Avedon

We love technology, but one of the causalities may be the letter.  We have volumes of collected letters in our library and worry that future generations will no longer have the luxury of reading such personal and wonderful artifacts. 

One of our favorite blogs is Letters of Note.  They post letters... of note.  Some not that noteworthy, but always a joy.   One of the things we love about blogs is the way they jog the mind.  Obscure ideas, people, places, and things that one knows are out there, but often tucked away in the recesses of the mind until...

We are very fond of the letters of poets and treasure the Selected Letters of Marianne Moore.

Marianne Moore was quite the gal about town. Moore was fixture in New York both inside and outside literary circles.  She often ventured out in a cape and an iconic tricorne hat.  Moore never married and lived with her mother.   She won most prizes associated with poetry, including the Pulitzer. 

Moore loved boxing and in 1963, Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, recorded an album.   He asked Marianne Moore to write the liner notes.

Moore was a huge fan of baseball and in 1968,  Moore threw out the first pitch for the Yankees.

Letters of Note reminded us of a rather unusual job undertaken by the poet Marianne Moore.  As she was nearing 70, The Ford Motor Company called upon the poet to name its new line of cars.  Ford believed that the best way to find a name for the car was to go directly to someone who knew the language, so the asked a poet.  Read her correspondence with Ford at Letters of Note.

Thanks to Marianne Moore we are still driving around in the Utopian Turtletop.  Sorry, we are still driving around in the Edsel.