Marianne Moore

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We All Know It

That silence is best: that action and re-
Action are equal: that control, discipline, and
Liberation are bywords when spoken by an appraiser, that the
	Accidental sometimes achieves perfection, loath though we may be 
to
								
          admit it:

And that the realm of art is the realm in
Which to look for "fishbones in the throat of the gang." Pin-
Pricks and the unstereotyped embarrassment being the contin-
	Ual diet of artists. And in spike of it all, poets ask us just what it

Is in them that we cannot subscribe to:
People overbear till told to stop: no matter through
What sobering process they have gone, some inquire if emotion, true
	And stimulated are not the same thing: promoters request us to take
											                 our 
oath

That appearances are not cosmic: mis-
Fits in the world of achievement want to know what bus-
Iness people have to reserve judgment about undertakings. It is
	A strange idea that one must say what one thinks in order to be
										              understood.