Artist jessica Care moore ready to take on new role as Detroit’s poet laureate

jessica Care moore’s father has been with her every step of her long-running, creative career. At least in spirit. 

While Tom Moore died of emphysema in 1994 while moore was in her 20s, the Detroit poet said her dad was on her mind the following year when she won “Showtime at the Apollo,” a talent competition in New York, where she reigned five weeks in a row. 

Moore, 52, is thinking of him again now, as she takes on a new role as Detroit’s poet laureate. 

“I was very close to my father, closer to him than anybody else in my family,” said moore, adding her father would have turned 100 this year. “I knew this centennial year would be a powerful one because he’s been such a powerful ancestor for me along the way of this journey in poetry and writing. When he died, poetry just poured out of me. 

“I feel like he’s in the house,” she added. “I feel like he’s right here.” 

The multi-hyphenate moore – also an activist, recording artist, founder of book publishing company Moore Black Press, filmmaker and mother – is the third poet laureate to serve the city. She follows in the footsteps of Dudley Randall, who began in 1981, and Naomi Long Madgett, who served from 2001 until her death in 2020.

Under the two-year appointment, moore will compose poems for special events and occasions as well as planning and leading national and local poetry-centered events, giving an annual address at the Detroit Public Library and uplifting and supporting poetry in the community, moore said. 

The role is sponsored by The Ford Foundation, which also is sponsoring Detroit’s first composer laureate, who will be announced in June. The foundation also sponsors the  city historian position, held by Detroiter Jamon Jordan. 

“I’m gonna do everything in my power to do great things with the position and I’m always honored to represent my favorite city, the GOAT city, Detroit, Michigan,” moore said. 

Moore talked to BridgeDetroit about the programming she wants to bring to Detroiters as poet laureate, her poetry beginnings and the many projects she’s working on. 

This transcript was lightly edited for length and clarity.

BridgeDetroit: Why did you decide to apply for the position? 

moore: One of the reasons is because I love Naomi Long Madgett dearly. When I was very young I was inspired by her work as a book publisher with Lotus Press. And I wanted it (the position) because I want to do some work, I want to do something big. I want to make sure people see poetry everywhere in the city because poetry is everywhere. I want to be able to show up and show little girls that you can write yourself into existence, that you can use poems to change lives and that real poets exist. We’re not old, white guys in a book that you’ve never heard of. 

BridgeDetroit: Did you ever get to interact with Naomi? 

moore: I was in workshops at Broadside Press (an independent Detroit publishing company) and she was often teaching. I was learning from her and listening to her. One of the things she told me about publishing was when you publish your first book, if you ever decide to publish your own book and self publish, make sure that your books look like the other books in the bookstore, that they have a perfect bind, that they’re well edited. She was giving me notes like she knew that I was going to start a publishing house one day. And when I started my press in ‘97, Moore Black Press, I remembered her words. And then over the years, I became a well-known poet and I would do readings with her. She’s just gracious and beautiful and a great, solid, brilliant poet.

BridgeDetroit: What kind of projects are you hoping to accomplish?

moore: I want to build a poetry curriculum (for Detroit Public Schools Community District). I want to see an active poetry existence inside of the classroom in our schools. I want to have a “Detroit Love” haiku city-wide program that includes visual arts and includes all ages, especially our young and elderly population, that pushes haiku into all kinds of different public art spaces. 

I want to bring poets to Detroit that have not read in Detroit. I know a lot of the Black poet laureates around the country. I’ve brought Tongo Eisen-Martin, the San Francisco poet laureate here and I want to bring him back. I want to bring avery young, the Chicago poet laureate, and just poet laureates in general. And I’d like to have an international poetry festival maybe in my second year. 

BridgeDetroit: When did you begin writing poetry? 

moore: I’ve been writing poetry since I was around nine years old. I think poetry was always there, it wasn’t like I got into it. And I was writing poems as an activist on my college campus at Wayne State University. I used poetry to kind of pull people in to talk about what was wrong with the system. And then that connected me to the Black Arts Movement and Harlem Renaissance writers.

One of the first poems I wrote was to my father in 1994. It was a poem called “Breeze” and I wrote it the morning of his funeral. And so, “Breeze” was published in my first book, “The Words Don’t Fit in My Mouth.”

BridgeDetroit: What other projects are you working on? 

My feature film is premiering at the American Black Film Festival in June and I’m very excited about that. It’s called “He Looked Like a Postcard.” It’s a love story, but it’s a love letter to Detroit. 

Aug. 31 is the tentative date for Black Women Rock-Daughters of Betty and it’s the 20th anniversary. I’m waiting to confirm the venue and waiting for some support and sponsors to kick in. I’m hoping that I have the money to produce it on the level that I want to produce it. 

We Are Scorpio, me and Steffanie’s (Christi’an) rock and roll project, is slated to release at the end of June, early July. I’m busy, but I’m always busy, though. 

BridgeDetroit: How do you hope to inspire the next generation of poets in Detroit? 

moore: I hope I’ve been doing it by showing them that poetry has a place in many spaces, that it’s not limited to bookstores and stages. Poetry is needed in corporate spaces and classroom spaces and opera houses and African American museums and across cultural boundaries and definitely across the world. It’s a limitless art form that connects with people on a soul level. And so, just don’t limit yourself and I’m hoping that they’ll see that’s what I’ve been doing. That’s why I’m still here because I’ve been reinventing myself for 25-plus years. The hard work does actually pay off.