Marianne Moore’s “Light Is Speech,” Decision Magazine, and the Wartime Work of Intellectual Exchange

Abstract

In this essay Setina analyzes Moore’s 1941 poem “Light Is Speech” in the periodical in which it first appeared, Klaus Mann’s anti-fascist magazine Decision, to show how Moore shapes a poetics of resistance that both participates in and flags reservations to a wider wartime conversation about the political power of art and cultural exchange. Products of a transitional period in Moore’s own career, “Light Is Speech” and Moore’s further writings for Decision reflect her changing sense of the poet’s role as activist. Setina argues that Decision, short-lived though it was, provides a crucial interlocutor and context for Moore’s development as a political poet, one who saw a need for poetry not just to speak, but also to reach readers and move them to act.