George Shiras Photo
“deer skins–white with white spots
‘as satin needlework in a single color may carry a varied pattern'”
“New York,” l. 6,
First published in The Dial 71 (December 1921) 637.
In her note when this poem appeared in Observations, Moore offered a long quotation from an article by George Shiras in The Literary Digest. The article discussed Shiras’s experience of albino deer on Grand Island, off the Michigan shore of Lake Superior. It was Shiras who described the fawn’s coat as looking like satin needlework. The Shiras piece originally appeared in The National Geographic for August, 1921, and it is from that issue that this photograph is taken. 
The black and white photographs cannot do justice to the white-on-white coat, better seen in a contemporary color photograph by Michael Crowley. The fawn to the right gives a sense of the lightly shaded coloration. Click on the photograph to enlarge it.
Marianne Moore: Poetry 
There are also albino deer that live on the now deserted army depot outside of Waterloo/Geneva, New York. They can still be spied from the road, wandering through tall stalks of grass. Would MM have ever had occasion to see them there?
Comment by Bruce Henderson — May 6, 2011 @ 1:37 am |
Moore’s inlaws had a summer place in upstate New York but I do not recall where. My books are not yet unpacked but when they are, I’ll take a look. I know MM visited there occasionally.
Comment by moore123 — May 6, 2011 @ 1:01 pm |