There is a type of fortitude that entangles. The spider silently spinning her web has it. Or the grape vine, in Marianne Moore's poem, Nevertheless: “a grape tendril ties a knot in knots till knotted thirty times - so the bound twig that's under- gone and over-gone, can't stir.” This terrifying tenacity suggests the over-dependent relationship between Moore and her mother, Mary. Mary’s invasive presence was described by Alyse Gregory, a family friend: “Mon dieu! What a mother

Marianne Moore isn't mentioned in the Lawrence biography by John Worthen, but she published his poems in The Dial and they exchanged numerous letters. After his death, Moore wrote privately that she had a "deep, indeed reverent regard for him." Marianne Moore was often characterized as a spinster, yet she learned from frequently-censored D.H. Lawrence that there's "dignity and mystery even in carnality," writes Moore's biographer Linda Leavell. And when Moore heard that some