Julia Ann Moore (née Julia Ann Davis; December 1, 1847 – June 5, 1920) was an American

poetaster Poetaster , like rhymester or versifier, is a derogatory term applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, ''poetaster'' has implications of unwarranted pretensions to artistic value. The word was coined in Latin by Erasmus in 1521. It was fir ...

. Like Scotland's

William McGonagall William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish descent. He gained notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work. He wrote about 2 ...

, she is best known for writing notoriously bad poetry.

Biography

Young Julia grew up on her family's Michigan farm, the eldest of four children. When she was ten, her mother became ill, and Julia assumed many of her mother's responsibilities. Her formal education was thereby limited. In her mid-teens, she started writing poetry and songs, mostly in response to the death of children she knew, but any newspaper account of disaster could inspire her. At age 17, she married Frederick Franklin Moore, a farmer. Julia ran a small store and, over the years, bore ten children, of whom six survived to adulthood. She continued to write poetry and songs. Moore's first book of verse, ''The Sentimental Song Book'', was published in 1876 by C. M. Loomis of

Grand Rapids Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...

, and quickly went into a second printing. A copy ended up in the hands of James F. Ryder, a

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

publisher, who republished it under the title ''The Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public''. Ryder sent out numerous review copies to newspapers across the country, with a cover letter filled with low-key mock praise. And so Moore received national attention. Following Ryder's lead, contemporary reviews were amusedly negative. The ''Rochester Democrat'' wrote of ''Sweet Singer'' that

Shakespeare, could he read it, would be glad that he was dead …. If Julia A. Moore would kindly deign to shed some of her poetry on our humble grave, we should be but too glad to go out and shoot ourselves tomorrow.

The ''Hartford Daily Times'' said that

to meet such steady and unremitting demands on the lachrymal ducts one must be provided, as Sam Weller suspected Job Trotter was, 'with a main, as is allus let on.'…

The collection became a curious best-seller, though it is unclear whether this was due to public amusement with Moore's poetry or genuine appreciation of the admittedly " sentimental" character of her poems. It was, more or less, the last gasp of that school of obituary poetry that had been broadly popular in the U.S. throughout the mid-19th century. Moore gave a reading and singing performance, with orchestral accompaniment, in 1877 at a Grand Rapids opera house. She somehow misinterpreted the jeering of the audience as criticism of the orchestra. Moore's second collection, ''A Few Choice Words to the Public'', appeared in 1878, but found few buyers. Moore gave a second public performance in late 1878 at the same opera house. By then she had figured out that the praise directed to her was false and the jeering sincere. She began by admitting her poetry was "partly full of mistakes" and that "literary is a work very hard to do". After the poetry and the laughter and jeering in response was over, Moore ended the show by telling the audience:

You have come here and paid twenty-five cents to see a fool; I receive seventy-five dollars, and see a whole houseful of fools.

Afterwards, her husband forbade her to publish any more poetry. Three more poems were eventually published, and she would write poems for friends. In 1880, she also published, in newspaper serialization, a short story, "Lost and Found", a strongly moralistic story about a drunkard, and a novella, "Sunshine and Shadow", a peculiar

romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

set in the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

. The ending of "Sunshine and Shadow" was perhaps intended to be self-referential: the farmer facing foreclosure is gratefully rescued by his wife's publishing her secret cache of fiction. According to some reports, though, her husband was not grateful, but embarrassed. Shamed or not, he moved the family 100 miles north to Manton in 1882. Moore's notoriety was known in Manton, but the locals respected her, and did not cooperate with the occasional reporter trying to revisit the past. They were a successful business couple, he with an orchard and sawmill, she with a store. Her husband died in 1914. The next year, Julia republished "Sunshine and Shadow" in pamphlet form. She spent much of her widowhood "melancholy", sitting on her porch. She died quietly in 1920. The news of her death was widely reported, sometimes with a light touch.

Poetry

Some comparison to

is worth making. Unlike McGonagall, Moore commanded a fairly wide variety of

meters The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...

and forms, albeit like

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massach ...

the majority of her verse is in the

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

meter. Like McGonagall, she held a maidenly

bluestocking ''Bluestocking'' is a term for an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the 18th-century Blue Stockings Society from England led by the hostess and critic Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800), the "Queen of the Blues", including Eliz ...

's allegiance to the

Temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...

, and frequently indited

ode An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...

s to the joys of sobriety. Most importantly, like McGonagall, she was drawn to themes of

accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...

disaster A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...

, and sudden death; as has been said of

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...

's ''

A Shropshire Lad ''A Shropshire Lad'' is a collection of sixty-three poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman, published in 1896. Selling slowly at first, it then rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting the ...

'', in her pages you can count the dead and wounded.

Edgar Wilson Nye Edgar Wilson "Bill" Nye (August 25, 1850February 22, 1896) was an American humorist. He was also the founder and editor of the ''Laramie Boomerang''. Biography Nye was born in Shirley, Maine. His parents removed to a farm on the St. Croix rive ...

called her "worse than a

Gatling gun The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling. It is an early machine gun and a forerunner of the modern electric motor-driven rotary cannon. The Gatling gun's operation centered on a cyc ...

". Here, she is inspired by the

Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 10 ...

: Her less morbid side is on display when she hymns ''Temperance Reform Clubs'': Despite her acknowledgment that "Literary is a work very difficult to do," she did not approve of the life of

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

Influence

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

was a self-described fan of Moore (though not for the reasons Moore would have liked). Twain alluded to her work in ''Following the Equator'', and it is widely assumed that Moore served as a literary model for the character of Emmeline Grangerford in ''

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United St ...

''.Bradley Hayden
In Memoriam Humor: Julia Moore and the Western Michigan Poets
The English Journal, Vol. 72, No. 5, September 1983. Grangerford's funereal ode to Stephen Dowling Botts: is not far removed from Moore's poems on subjects like ''Little Libbie'': Moore was also the inspiration for comic poet

Ogden Nash Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York Times'' the country's best ...

, as he acknowledged in his first book, and whose daughter reported that her work convinced Nash to become a "great bad poet" instead of a "bad good poet". ''The Oxford Companion to American Literature'' describes Nash as using Moore's Selections of Moore appeared in

D. B. Wyndham-Lewis Dominic Bevan Wyndham Lewis Royal Society of Literature, FRSL (9 March 1891 – 21 November 1969) was a British journalist, author and biographer, known for his humorous newspaper articles. Life and works Born Llewellyn Bevan Wyndham Lewis to a ...

and Charles Lee's famous ''Stuffed Owl'' anthology, and in other collections of bad poetry. Most of her poetry was reprinted in a 1928 edition, which can be found online. Her complete poetry and prose, with biography, notes, and references, can be found in the Riedlinger edited collection ''Mortal Refrains''. Most poetry collections reprint the latest, "best", versions of their contents. Riedlinger has adopted the opposite philosophy. Moore has been grouped into the Western Michigan School of Bad Versemakers. Her local contemporaries — including Dr. William Fuller, S.H. Ewell, J.B. Smiley, and Fred Yapple — do not appear to have had relationships with each other, but their proximity and similar penchant for exceptionally laughable verse have led to their posthumous grouping together. Since 1994 the Flint Public Library has held the Julia A. Moore Poetry Festival to celebrate bad poetry.

Notes

References

*Wyndham-Lewis, D. B., and Lee, Charles (eds.): ''The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Verse'' N.Y. Review of Books (2003), reprint edition. *Parsons, Nicholas. ''The Joy of Bad Verse'' London: Collins (1988). *Petras, Ross: ''Very Bad Poetry'' Vintage (1997). *Riedlinger, Thomas J. (ed.) ''Mortal Refrains: The Complete Collected Poetry, Prose, and Songs of Julia A. Moore, The Sweet Singer of Michigan'' Michigan State University Press (1998)

External links