the louderARTS Project

Laura E. J. Moran

Laura Moran is among the rarest practitioners of the poetic craft, a "poet's poet" who is also a magical stage presence. If one should wonder where the 'poetry' in 'performance poetry' has gone, one need look no further than the work of Laura Moran.
• Daniel Solis, national award winning poet.

Laura Moran is a hot poet at the top of her game. She is risking everything by sofa-surfing the USA • seeing her is like taking the temperature of the Age.
• Bob Holman, Bard Professor and editor of the United States of Poetry.

[She]...is a wordsmith of the highest caliber. Few poets in the country can match her stunning combination of sensuality, reality, and artistry. She is a performer that brings every elemant of authentic human spirit to the stage.
• Kristen Knowles, Cape Cod Poets' Theater.

One of the most beautifully lyrical poets ever to bridge the space between page and stage.
• Taylor Mali, poet, performer, educator.

Laura E. J. Moran is the 1992 recipient of the Jean Garrigue Award.

She travels throughout the country and abroad touring and headlining at numerous universities, elementary schools, festivals, competitions, women's organizations, literacy groups, coffee houses, churches, and nightclubs.

In addition, in 1992 Laura became Providence's first Grand Slam Champion and in 1996, Seattle's Grand Slam Champion. She has represented both Seattle and Providence on various national teams from 1996-1998.

For four years as vice-president of Projective Verse, Inc., she introduced children of all ages to the wiles of poetry and hosted the Providence 2000 National Poetry Slam.

Several of her pieces appear in such publications as Defined Providence, Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza 1994, and Children Remember Their Fathers. Her work was performed in collaboration with Words and Letters: RI Calligraphers and Poets and with Island Moving Company's production of Out of The Box.

In 1999, she received the Mayor's citizen's citation for artistic contribution in Providence, RI.

She currently lives in Callicoon, NY but is touring this year with her new book and cd Original Skin.

Books:
Where We Live (Photosynthesis Press: 1995), Exodus (Photosynthesis Press: 1997), Original Skin w/CD (Photosynthesis Press: 2001), Kiss of an Axe (11th Hour: 1992)

Broadsides:
Rich Lady Buying Lipstick (Photosynthesis Press: 2002), Anna Baker (Doublebunny Press: 1997)

lejmoran at hotmail dot com
www.lauraejmoran.com
www.cdbaby.com/lauraejmoran

Degas' Dancer

lady by the bath
bent double hair
knotted nape inked
out in wrist flash
the line goes
here the hand
commands the eye
nods the body
begins on paper
lady in the tub
heron leg poised
towel balanced
her chorusline
waist to the window
open a dancer no
longer in the wings

Rich Woman Stealing Lipstick

Two-faced and fading to the bone,
our lady of perpetual deceit,
wasting your own salt, perserving yourself
beyond preservation....come out
behind the circus screen. You pretend to eat,
shave, shit, slip counterfeit into an empty purse,
believe your ethereal heels float
above ground on the clouds of cocktail kindness,
fling small talk, a thin scarf about your neck.

Recall Isadora Duncan?...

Her immortal scarf coiling silk
about her throat, tightening the wheel
as her convertible strikes mountain air
at sixty, unable to steer,
careening the Beverly Hills bend,
a pas de deux with the wind,
death demand binding to the bone.

I knew a dancer once--
Melissa Honeybee,

twirling in second-hand pink satin heels,
thrift feathers swirling martinis in a row
below, wrapping her divine wings
about a metal pole. She danced crazy
eights, shed skin in laps, pranced dreams
rouged and candied
just out of reach...

But when she really danced--tight black

against bare pine boards, against the blank wall
of art or love or hunger--all her weight fell hard
to the body, the flesh she carried could not fly...
and she loved it, played in the space between the fall.
The girl earned her footprints, fought gravity all the way--

she knew, like matador and bull,
in earth's original skin--this is what we do.

No lift off, without coming back to where we were.
Paws caught in gravity's trap, expect to crack
like the creature you are. Stuck to the windshield,
pray to plastic christ but no cute tune about bluebirds
will lift you into the air to save your technicolor bones.
Clicking heels won't get you home-- meanwhile,
bleach your face, and pluck your hair,
fart with fear for your stinking soul.

Keep pennies from petty theives

while the Honeybee seeds her patron's dreams
then pockets cash to get her to West Palm Beach
where she can dance for herself.
Let's look straight: A body is a body after all...
as real as broken slats of fence, we all need repair,
a tight screw now and then.

Give me your manicured hand, I know a place--

a stage lit at the dark height of dark eyes,
where you can slip candied as a honeybee into dance,
or just watch and pet that which sleeps
hackled and waiting under your bed.

© Laura E. J. Moran

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