Presented at the 2024 CiRCE National Conference: A Contemplation of Prudence.

In the present age, the art of poetry is little understood and even less attended to. The modernist poet Marianne Moore called her writings poems only because “there is no other category to put it.” But what does reflection on the western tradition tell us about the essence of the art of poetry? That it consists of four “M’s”: making, memory, metaphor, and meter.