Madison County Democrat. (London, Ohio) 19??-1958, 1951-05-11
100000 Sonnets BetrOeen The
Treatments Keep Doc Busy
BY Saul Pett
(For Hal 5oyle)

NEW YORK-Among other dis
tinctions, Merrill Moore is one of
our few poets, if not our only poet
whose work is reviewed in med
ical journals.
His latest little volume, "Illeg-
itinate Sonnetsn Wayne Publish
ers), was favorable received by
the New England Journal of Med
icine, along with some non-lyrical
works titled "A Primer of Ven-
Gus Pressure, i" Pathology in Cen
eral Surgery" and THE Abnormal
Pneumoencephalogram."
The medical interest in Moore's S
non-medical, uninhibited, realistic
poems is easily explained. For,
besides being the worlds most
prolific producer of sonnets, a
long distance swimmer twho at
4s still crawls two miles just for
exercise) and an industrious sea
shell collector, Merrill Moore also
is prominent Boston phychia-
trist.
He believes l1c is the first poet
to have his work reviewed in the
New England journal of medicine
since DR.. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
DR.. Moore also has been re-
viewed by law critics. Those who
liked his poetry said of him:
'Kinsey in verse" =. Acute in
sight DIR. Moore's therapy
for the repressed traditional SON.
net has released its inhibitions
and show it how to go out and
have q good time
DR.. Moore, tall, ruddy man
with greying brown hair and an
easy outgoing manner, estimates
that in the past 80 years he has
written more than 100000 SON
nets. They are all filed chronol-
ogically in a 20x2ox20 building
built just for that purpose behind
his Boston home.
He has published about 1000
sonnets. t.Only about one out of
90" he says, is worth printing.
But I'd rather write 10 lousy SON.
nets and not lose one good one
than wait and wait and not write
any at all.
The poet-psychiatrist's father
was John Trotwood Moore, a
writer of highly romantic, ortho-
dox novels. DIR. Moore's poetry is
far from orthodox.
'Psychoanalytically, / suppose,
/ was competing with my father, !"
he explains. But / find it easier
to write sonnets than not to write
them. They provide an escape
from my work, a chance at self
study and an opportunity to set
my fantasies down.
One third of his poetic charac-
ters, he estimates, are drawn
from his patients and friends, one
third from his Imagination and
one-third are just me-"
Only one patient, out of many
hundreds. recognized herself in a
DR.. Moore sonnet. She was so
happy" the poet reports, she
wanted me to use her real name. I"
DR.. Moore grabs at any free
moment to create his poetry. He
composes between patients, die
tates to portable recorder in
his car tsorneone else does the
driving) and writes late at night
at home.
His wife, the doctor reports,
likes his poetry. The rest of the
family only '.tolerates" it. His
four children are more interested
in palopies. boats, jam sessions
and Roy Rogers.
Frequently DR.. Moore finds
himself writing a sonnet without
understanding it Immediately.
II think the creative uneon-
scious.' he explains. writes the
poem. II comes UP. as If on a
dumh-waiter, from the cellar kit
chen of the mind, and the con-
scious mind writes II down. Put
ting II another way. its cooked
iiy the unconscious and served by
tho conscious.