Marianne Moore

Moore often counted syllables per line instead of using regular accentual meter, giving poems like The Fish and The Pangolin their precise shapes. That formal control is one reason she is grouped with modernists such as Ezra Pound, H. D., and William Carlos Williams.

Moore won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems. The same book also received major recognition from the National Book Award and the Bollingen Prize, making it one of the landmark American poetry books of that period.

Yes, Moore edited The Dial from 1925 to 1929, a major modernist literary magazine. That role put her in direct contact with writers such as T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.

Moore used animals such as pangolins, jerboas, and fish to study behavior, armor, perception, and moral discipline. Her poems often combine natural history detail with ethical argument, which is a distinctive part of her style.