Lenard D. Moore: An Interview and a Book Review

David G. Lanoue

Lenard D. Moore: An Interview and a Book Review

The Interview

The interview took place via the Internet during the first week of January 2021. David G. Lanoue (DGL) questioned acclaimed African American poet Lenard D. Moore (LDM) about his writing in general as well as how the current pandemic may have affected it.

DGL: 2020 was a hard, strange year, so many changes in lifestyle, in work, in how we relate to one another. How about your poetry? Did anything change about your poetry in 2020, what it means to you what you want it to mean to your readers?

LDM: Yes, there were changes to my poetry in 2020, especially with the topics and delivery of readings. All of my readings were by way of Zoom. Maybe I should say I presented Zoom readings. I taught poetry workshops on Zoom. Zoom became the major platform for me. I have also participated in readings on Facebook Live. For example, here is the link to Part One of the major three-part virtual series, “Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative Arts” in which I participated: [YouTube https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U41wB4_E5U&feature=youtu.be]. I highly recommend listening to Part Two and Part Three, too. In fact, I think they will play as soon as Part One finishes playing. There are several well-known poets and writers who participated in the series, including Ishmael Reed, Eugene B. Redmond, Devorah Major, Jerry W. Ward, Jr, Ayodele Nzinga, Glenn Parris, C. Liegh McInnis, Tureeda Mikell, Len Lawson, Darrell Stover, Avotcja, Michael Warr, and Staajabu. Dr. Kim McMillon served as the moderator. Additionally, I have participated in a literary conversation with Dr. Glenn Paris and Dr. Lauri Scheyer on a program titled “Writers on Writing” on Facebook Live. A number of these events are on YouTube. After the lockdown in March of 2020, I taught my classes online. I became more involved with teaching with Moodle. I began to type comments on my students’ assignments online. I had long been downloading my students’ assignments to grade and entering their grades in Moodle. I had also long been uploading assignments in Moodle. For several years, however, I have entered my students’ grades into Moodle and then their semester grades/final grades, too.

DGL: This week I’m preparing for my own classes in literary criticism for the upcoming semester. I plan to ask my students questions about Plato or Aristotle, so I’ll ask you the same question—actually there are two questions that I like to ask them to help reflect on what poetry means to them. Here’s the first one: Plato in The Republic expressed the idea that poetry can change people’s lives, that poetry has an ethical function, and this frankly worried Plato. Do you agree with Plato? As a poet do you feel

like you can affect the way people live and even change their lives? Or are you more on the side of Aristotle who in the Poetics argued that poetry is just a way to blow off steam, to elicit an emotional release? Which ancient Greek philosopher do you find yourself closer to you when thinking about your own poetry? Are you changing lives or are you inciting an emotional experience? Or is it a bit of both?

LDM: Yes, I certainly think that poetry can change people’s lives, but I do not know why one would worry about it. I feel that poetry changes people’s lives for good reasons, such as maybe evoking a greater emotional appeal and enabling people to glean multiple meanings for certain topics and situations. No, I am not certain anyone can affect the way people live, because people must want to change their lives. I do think, however, that poetry can reveal the beauty of the natural world and the richness of people’s lives. To that end, perhaps, people would not want to pollute the natural world. No, I do not think poetry is just a way to blow off steam. I believe that poetry has its function in people’s lives. I hope my poetry changes people’s lives and triggers an emotional appeal in people’s lives.

DGL: To what degree do your feelings about poetry align with the Black Arts movement of the 60s —Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez and others? They seemed to be following Plato’s idea that poetry can change the world; that it can bring about social progress and awareness that would help the civil rights struggle. Are you aligned with poets who are using their work to bring justice to the world and especially to the USA?

LDM: Yes, I believe that people change helps to change the world. I also believe that it is the poet’s job to depict truths in his or her poetry. Then, maybe poetry can also help to bring justice in the world. Whenever something happens, people usually turn to poetry. Thus, poetry possibly offers answers to questions that might haunt people. Additionally, poetry can bring healing to people. In short, poetry has its functions in society.

DGL: The second question I like to ask my students regarding Plato and Aristotle concerns where poetry comes from, what poetry is. In another of his dialogues, The Ion, Plato describes poetry as a divine madness, an inspiration from the gods above. Aristotle, on the other hand, talks about poetry as a set of techniques and rhetorical structures skillfully applied. Where do you find yourself on that continuum? Do you believe with Plato that poetry is inspired by something beyond your conscious self, or do you find yourself more in agreement with Aristotle—that poetry is about mastering techniques and structures?

LDM: When writing poetry, I definitely think the divine enables me to write poetry. I also think that mastering one’s craft enables the poet to write poetry. Additionally, I think reading widely helps the poet to write poetry, too. In short, I think more than one technique enables the poetry, particularly me, to write poetry. Furthermore, I think years of working at my craft enable me to write poetry.

DGL: Charles Fort once told me once that his poetry comes directly from the spirit world. He definitely seemed to agree with Plato’s divine madness theory. Is your poetry spiritual in origin or purpose?

LDM: I like Charles Fort’s poetry. I have known him for decades. To that end, I am aware that he writes prose poetry. At times, perhaps, the ancestors speak to the poet. Moreover, I have written poetry, which I feel embodies the spiritual in some way. I prefer to let the literary critics analyze my poetry.

DGL: Your first collection in 1982, Poems of Love and Understanding, has a very provocative title. Do you feel like your poetry promotes love and understanding among people?

LDM: I hope my poetry promotes love and understanding among people. My job as poet is to write the best poem as humanly possible and to write about truths.

DGL: When the great library at Alexandria burned a lot of the wisdom and art of the ancient world was lost. If you were to imagine a future great library were to burn, and you could save only one of your books for future readers, which one would it be? And why?

LDM: In the situation that you have described, I think I would try to save Geography of Jazz, because I think it embodies music. I think music has a way of calming people and speaking to people. I hope I was able to get the poems right in Geography of Jazz, because I spent twenty or more years working on it. I kept revising the manuscript and taking poems out of it and adding poems to it. If I had the opportunity to save one of the several anthologies, which I have edited or co-edited, I think I would save All the Songs We Sing, because I strongly believe in the collective voice. The anthology celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective. Of course, I like all of my books. However, I think I should at least attempt to answer your question.

DGL: Living in New Orleans, I really enjoy The Geography of Jazz. Could you tell how this book came about and the role of music in it—and in your poetry in general?

LDM: I have listened to jazz for decades. I really like jazz. I have been performing my poetry with musicians and bands for more than two decades. I especially appreciate rhythm. To that end, I have tried to write poetry with rhythm. Decades ago, some of my jazz poetry appeared in literary journals. Additionally, some of my blues poetry also appeared in blues magazines long ago. Thus, I wanted to work with rhythm and music in my poetry. Yet, I began working on my jazz poetry manuscript

that became Geography of Jazz.

DGL: I first came across your poetry in the form of haiku. I remember reading and reviewing your collection, gathering at the crossroads: The Million Man March, in 2003 [Xavier Review 23.2 (Fall 2003): 60-63], and recently I taught your earlier haiku book, Desert Storm: A Brief History (1993). In these collections of one-breath poetry you seem to be chronicling the African American experience with certain echoes of Richard Wright. Did Richard Wright inspire your haiku? If so, how?

LDM: No, I was unaware of Richard Wright’s haiku when I started writing haiku. At that time, I had not heard of Richard Wright. However, I wanted to chronicle the African American experience with my haiku writing. Of course, years later, I read Richard Wright’s haiku, though I had already had my idea of haiku through much experimentation and reading Raymond Roseliep.

DGL: How do you keep your haiku deeply reflective of authentic human experience and not overtly political? I’ll explain what I’m trying to ask: on the back cover of Desert Storm, Sonia Sanchez writes in her blurb that your book is “a searching and sensitive commentary on the desert storm fiasco.” I don’t find your book to be a “commentary” per se, and I certainly don’t feel like you pass judgment on the politics of Desert Storm in it. What was your aim in that book? How did you go about achieving it?

LDM: No, my aim is to always employ the haiku aesthetics when writing haiku, though I try to work my own way. I have long striven toward my own style and voice in my haiku writing. So, I just wanted to write the best haiku humanly possible without commentary. I hope that the reader brings his or her own experience to the reading of my haiku. To that end, you are right; I did not try to pass judgment on the politics. I am honored and humble that Sonia Sanchez wrote a blurb for my Desert

Storm haiku book.

DGL: Of your many other collections of poetry, The Open Eye in 1985, Forever Home in 1992, A Temple looming in 2008–which one of these works reflects you trying something different, perhaps taking a new approach or taking risks?

LDM: I feel that a Temple Looming takes a new approach in the way that I wrote about old black and white photographs and the ordering of the poems in the book or the structure of the book. However, I like all of my books for different reasons. A book is like its author’s child. For that reason, I do not believe in choosing one of my books over my other books.

DGL: Final question: Who reads your poetry, Lenard? Who would you like to have reading your poetry? And, in general, should Americans be reading more poetry?

LDM: I hope everyone reads my poetry, especially because I try to capture the times, the moments, the places, and experiences that I might encounter. I think Americans should be reading more poetry to understand the world in which we live and to find meanings. For example, many poets are writing about the ongoing pandemic, including me.

Thank you very much for such great questions and such an engaging interview, David!

DGL: Thank you!

The Book Review: The Geography of Jazz

Lenard D. Moore, The Geography of Jazz: Poems. Rpt. Blair Press, 2020; originally published by Mountains & Rivers Press, 2018. $16.95. 67 pages. ISBN: 978-1-949467-30-7.

I was already working on my review of this collection when its author, Lenard D. Moore, confessed in an interview that, if he had to save just one of his books from a modern-day Library of Alexandria-like fire, this would be the one. I therefore proceed with the added confidence of the poet’s stamp of approval when I recommend this book of forty-five jazzrelated, jazz-infused poems as a “must-read” for those who have followed Moore’s career for some time as well as for those readers who can treat themselves to the pleasure of discovering him now.

As he also mentioned in the interview, Moore seeks to capture “times […] moments […] places, and experiences” in his poetry. He remains always ready to pull his little pad from a pocket to capture here-and-now inspiration (a deft act that I’ve witnessed more than once). The poems in this collection express the freshness of a participant observer who keeps pad and pen always at hand, and who casts a keen eye, listens with a trained ear, to “capture” experience with joyous immediacy.

The bassist hugs the bass, plunks it. Ting, boom, ting boom — the drummer beats and booms. Saxophonist weaves notes, oscillates, blows and the pianist finger-dances on the keys… (“Swinging Cool” 3)

This is poetry meant to be read aloud, poetry you can dance to. Moore’s playful and seemingly effortless marshalling of rhythm, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and sudden, off-the cuff metaphor invites the reader into an imaginative experience that is not coincidentally similar to live performances of the music that he so plainly loves.

The Geography of Jazz provides a personal map of jazz-turnedpoetic performance as filtered through Moore’s senses and imagination, beginning with the Raleigh Jazz Festival (1986) and proceeding with interesting stops in North Carolina (Duke University Chapel), Kansas City (The Blue Room), San Francisco, New York (2751 Broadway and Lenox Lounge in Harlem), and ending brilliantly in the place where the music began: New Orleans, Louisiana. Along the way, a procession of musicians and singers, living and dead, weaves through the pages: Duke Ellington, “King” Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Carmen Lundy, Nnenna Freelon, and John Coltrane.

This collection of poems doesn’t attempt to provide a comprehensive or encyclopedic overview of jazz; readers shouldn’t expect Ken Burns-type coverage in The Geography of Jazz. Instead, Moore’s interactions with music and musicians in this book are achingly personal. As I mentioned, he is a participant observer. His journey through the Land of Jazz involves introspection of his own experiences in the moment that he is having them, in the moment of listening.

I’d rather hold my woman than this pen, buckle ourselves into long cantillating love serenades. The tune arouses slow dance memory:

breath to breath hearts in sync like Miles’ ensemble… (“Eros and Jazz” 41)

The seven-part “New Orleans Suite” with which he closes the book is a tiny masterpiece. In the first movement, “Evening,” he arrives at the Louis Armstrong International Airport eager to savor the music born in Congo Square but sadly disappointed. The only whiff of jazz in the air that night is the airport’s name. In the second movement, “Afternoon, The Next Day,” he enjoys a half-shrimp, half-oyster po’boy at Mandina’s on Canal Street: jazz for the taste buds, perhaps, but still not what he is searching for. In the third part (“At Maple Leaf Bar”), he finally experiences live music: a performance of Kermit Ruffins at the Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street in the Carrollton neighborhood.

Kermit’s trumpet telling Cajun secrets in blissful night when we wish drums and horn to levitate us, spent phones receiving message in smoky midnight when ghosts tiptoe… (“New Orleans Suite” 60)

Subsequent movements describe the poet waking up “in an iron frame bed” (61), eager for more explorations of New Orleans, including beignets at Café du Monde, and ending, with the seventh movement, “On Bourbon Street.” His visceral evocation of the music that he hears that night brings his book to a crashing crescendo, a long awaited “eruption.”

The sweet, metallic sound

we seek: trumpets flaring harmony. We linger. Stars punctuate the indigo sky. This is how jazz allures: a brilliant movement, voluptuous music, spreading, molten, fluent as a trail of smoke. Blue birds blaze midnight air.

We take flight. (65)

With his Geography of Jazz Lenard D. Moore invites us to a sound feast spicier than any po’boy, sweeter than any beignet. He invites us to join with him to hear the music, to connect to it, to love it… and to fly.