A. Wallace       Mrs. Melinda Carter       African American Literature 4         May 10, 1999
The Man and His Poetry
Photo from News & Observer
    Mr. Lenard Duane Moore takes his home life and experiences from abroad to create poetry that is simplistic in its style; creating vivid images as he describes those experiences to the audience. Mr. Moore is a native of Jacksonville, North Carolina. Growing up in Jacksonville, Mr. Moore lived near Camp Lejune in Onslow County. His parents are Roger and Mary Moore. His father served the Marines in the Vietnam war and his mother was a hat maker. Mr. Moore has written many poems about his father serving the Marines in Vietnam. Mr. Moore is the eldest of five boys and two girls. Along with his brother and sisters, Mr. Moore had the country chores of picking tobacco and blueberries. He was surrounded by a scene of pure nature in Onslow County such as ponds and farmfields.  
Education
 
   Although Mr. Moore pursued an education for himself, he also educated others. He was chosen to teach for the California Poets-In-The School Program and for the San Diego Poet- In - Residence at Mira Mesa  Branch Library. Mr. Moore also taught at Raleigh's William G. Enloe GT/Magnet High School. At Enloe, Mr. Moore taught English and Creative Writing.
Honors and Awards
    Mr. Moore has surely emerged into the African American Literature realm and the literature realm abroad. Because of his fine work in poetry and teaching, Mr. Moore has received many honors and awards. He has received grants such as the North Carolina Haiku Press Grant and the Emerging Artist Grant. The Emerging Artist Grant was given to him by the Raleigh Arts Commission.

The Beginning of Moore's Poems
  Served the United States Army in Germany. Mr. Moore was twenty when he wrote love poems to his girlfriend, who is his wife now, while he was in Germany. The poems did not stop in Germany on paper. His published poetry has traveled in translation to Spain, Italy, China, and especially Japan. While the poetry is published on paper, Mr. Moore shares his work by giving readings. Mr. Moore gave readings at "...colleges, festivals, and conferences, including The Library of Congress" (Forever Home 53). The Library of Congress is one of the largest and most valuable research libraries in the world. Mr. Moore recently read at a festival in Durham, North Carolina.
Carolina African American Writers Collection
 
    His poetry has led to the creation of the Carolina African American Writers Collection started in 1992. His organization "... a workshop and reader's group of poets, fiction writers, dramatists, children's writers, graphic artists, publicists, photographers and editors who meet monthly to read and critique each other's work" (Carolina African American Writers Collective 1). CAAWC serves as a literary and cultural arts connection for the North Carolina community. The group has thirty - five participants.

   
Tanka and Haiku
 
    It would be improper to omit the explanation of the arts that Mr. Moore uses frequently when he writes his poems. The two writing techniques Mr. Moore uses are tanka and haiku. Mr. Moore is known among the Japanese culture for his tanka and haiku. Tanka is a thirty one syllable poem. It is a comic style that deals with friendship, love, and nature. The haiku is a seventeen syllable poem. It has more of a serious style dealing with nature and the seasons of the year. Haiku asks the reader to use their imagination.

 
 
Criticism of Lenard Moore
 
    One of Mr. Moore's first works published was a collection of his poems called Forever Home: Poems by Lenard Moore. Forever Home is centered around his homeplace in North Carolina. It was published in 1992. There is a little criticism in the Introduction and the Afterward of the book. The Introduction was written by Guy Davenport who noticed Mr. Moore's sense of home. Davenport comments how Moore's "poems are as native to North Carolina as John Clare's are to Northamptonshire" (Introduction). Davenport continues by saying within these two poets lies "a sensual truth of locality" (Introduction). Davenport also paid attention to Moore's references to grandparents and great - grandparents. Davenport stereotypically commented how  "[farm] children are more than likely raised by grandparents, as their parents are in the field" (Introduction). The mentioning of grandparents in Moore's poems explains a journey by first looking at the paths that have already been paved for us by our grandparents who made their grandchildren pick in the fields. Davenport also notices how Moore refers to tobacco and picking tobacco and blueberries. Most importantly, Davenport recognizes Moore's "inner stability" or peace with his poems. The inner stability allows Moore to describe the surroundings by describing the senses. One sense that Moore uses frequently is the sense of sound.  He describes how "...A sudden bark echoes and echoes/ again in the distance" (Forever Home 3). Davenport believes Moore is a realist who uses his experience to create poems.

    In the Afterward of Forever Home, Fred Chappell focuses on Moore's appeal to nature. Fred Chappell writes that after he would read one of Moore's poems, he would look up "to see a squirrel on a limb or a nuthatch scampering down the trunk, knowing that the squirrel, the bird, and the tree itself affirmed each line that the poet wrote" (52). The description in Moore,s poems are similar in nature. Chappell describes nature in his poems as a painter drawing a landscape painting of nature. The poem is very descriptive and real. Gwendolyn Brooks, Poet Laureate of Illinois, also agrees that Moore's poems include "exciting and provocative" details of nature. Brooks believes those details of nature make Moore's poems strong and direct.

    I really do like the works of Lenard Moore because they remind me of my childhood days in Roseboro, North Carolina spending the week with my grandmother. Mr. Moore is a very descriptive writer. When I read his poems I can actually see the tobacco fields and the working hand. His poems are true to the country life he describes. One poem that I remember reminds me truly of the country life. It is named "The Migrants." It reminds me of how in Roseboro the Mexicans walk the streets going back and forth between work and home. I also remember how they used to be "out suckering tobacco./ Others chopp[ing] stubborn grass." If Mr. Moore's description of the migrants reminds me of my days in the country, then Mr. Moore has accomplished the goal he set out to do in his poems. That goal is to recreate the country scene in the reader's mind. Mr. Moore creates these scenes by using a simplistic style, especially in his tanka and haiku poems. However, in some of the poems Mr. Moore writes, the idea is so simplistic that the idea seems incomplete. Sometimes the incomplete feeling comes to me because the poem was just descriptions of nature instead of a story line which he usually uses, especially in the poems of the sections "Heat" and "Breaking Ground."

    Whatever critics may say about Mr. Moore, he has accomplished the goals he has set for himself.  He has taken his homelife expressions and put those expressions into imagery poems. These expressions became real as Mr. Moore elaborately described the country scene. With this skill of description, Mr. Moore has received many honors, awards, and grants. Many critics are impressed with his way of relating his poems with his home life and how vivid the descriptions are in the poem. Mr. Moore has passed on his skills to students as he taught in California, specifically San Diego, North Carolina State University, and William G. Enloe GT/Magnet High School. This man, Mr. Lenard Moore, emerged out of North Carolina into the art's world making himself known everywhere.
 
 
 

Bibliography
 
"Furious Flower Study Guide:Lenard Moore." [Online] Available Laural. R. R. "Japanese Literature." World Book Encyclopedias. 1994 ed.

"Library of Congress." World Book Encyclopedias. 1994 ed.

Moore, Lenard D. Forever Home. North Carolina: St. Andrews Press. 1992.

New Word Order. "Poetry by Lenard Moore." [Online] Available

Shabazz, Tia. "Carolina African American Writers Collective." [Online] Available "Tanka." [Online] Available http://www.faximum.com/aha.d/tanka.htm#lynx1, Friday November 16, 1956.

Jones, Sabrina. "Tar Heel of the Week." [Online] Available