jessica Care moore

jessica Care moore (she/her) is Detroit’s poet laureate. Born in Detroit, Michigan, moore is an award-winning interdisciplinary poet, recording artist, book publisher, cultural arts curator, and filmmaker. She is the executive producer and founder of Black WOMEN Rock! – Daughters of Betty, a 20-year-old rock & roll institution, concert, and empowerment weekend. She is also the founder of The Moore Art House, a nonprofit dedicated to elevating literacy through the arts within schools and across neighborhoods.

Her book We Want Our Bodies Back (Amistad, 2020) was the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s 2021 Honor Book for Best Poetry. In a review for The Fight and The Fiddle, Allia Abdulla-Matta writes: 

moore has trained a generation of witnesses and poets. Her fifth collection, We Want Our Bodies Back, begins as an homage to Sandra Annette Bland (1987–2015) and serves as an important cultural, historical, and poetic reckoning in which moore reminds us about the urgency of reclaiming Black bodies. She characterizes the text as an active “call to action, [and] to prayer, for women who’ve lost family members, our children, and even our own lives to unjustified police violence and profiling.”

moore is also the author of Sunlight Through Bullet Holes (Moore Black Press, 2014), God is Not An American: Poetry, Politics & Love (Moore Black Press, 2009), The Alphabet Verses The Ghetto (Moore Black Press, 2002), and The Words Don’t Fit in My Mouth (Moore Black Press, 1997). Her first children’s book, Her Crown Shines, illustrated by Dare Coulter, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.

moore has a rich discography, including the album Black Tea: The Legend of Jessi James (Javotti Media, 2015), and she has recorded her poetry with hip hop legends including Common, Nas, Jeezy, Talib Kweli, Karriem Riggins, Jeff Mills, The Last Poets, Jose James, Roy Ayers, among others. moore’s techno choreopoem Salt City premiered at the Apollo Theater, directed by Aku Kadogo, an original cast member of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls.

moore received the Marlowe Stoudamire Award for Innovation and Community Collaboration from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She is a 2019 and 2017 Knight Arts Recipient, 2018 Joyce Award Winner, 2016 Kresge Artist Fellow, 2015 NAACP Great Expectation Award Recipient, and 2013 Alain Locke Award Recipient. Among other honors, she has also received the Legend Award from Detroit Public Schools and the Trailblazing Poet Award from Words, Beats & Life in Washington D.C.

Appointed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, moore serves on the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. She lives in Detroit with her son, King, a young music producer and film actor.