H.D. Moe

H.D. Moe. Courtesy Wikipedia.

H.D. Moe (1937-2013) was an American poet.

Life

Moe was born in Corvallis, Oregon, the son of Estora Ricks and Hal W. Moe, and raised in Oregon and California.

He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, and later attended school on the G.I. Bill.

Moe studied at various times with a number of famous writers, including Theodore Roethke, Philip Whalen, and Bernard Malamud. Suffering from dyslexia, he developed his own style of "jazz poetry", with vivid imagery and unusual juxtapositions.

His poetic activities included publishing Lovelights: The Erotic Poetry/Art Newspaper of San Francisco (for a time the largest poetry publication in the world), curating 2 art galleries, and coordinating the San Francisco Poetry Festival in 1978. He published over 30 books of poetry.

Moe lived in Berkeley, California, where he contributed to Beatitude Press and edited the Berkeley Review of Books. He participated in many poetry readings throughout the Bay Area, and hosted the "Living Philosophers" discussion group at the North Berkeley Senior Center.

By July 2013 Moe, ill with liver cancer, was in hospice care at the Salem Lutheran Extended Care Faculty in Oakland.

Recognition

In 2013, poets Jack Foley and Mary Rudge raised funds in the Bay Area poetry community for a commemorative medal for Moe. They raised more than enough for the medal, which in the end was donated ("by Natica and Richard Angilly"). The medal and money ($560) were presented to Moe (who, according to Foley, "exclaimed that it was the most money he had ever received for a poetry reading!").

Publications

Poetry

• Blindfolded Elephant. Cherrythumb Press, 1968
• Poems by Moá. [Berkeley, CA]?: privately printed], 1968.
• Souls Hairs.: Boustrophedon, 1971
• Plug in the Electric Dictionary.: Community Press/Gary Wilcox, 1973.
• Ishtar Robinhood Fuck Spelling. San Francisco: Greenlight Press, 1978.
• Single sheet folded into a book.
• Ozone Allah. San Francisco: Beatitude Press, 1978.
• The Clone Poem.: Boüstrophedon, 1979.
• The Logic of Snowflakes.: Beatitude Press, 1979. unpaged. [30 p.] (photograph by Susan Thompson).
• --Immortal Amebas Jigsawpuzzle Electron Gambling Hong Kong – The Cup Lands On the Saucer a Poem. Thailand: Thai Watana Panich Press Co., Ltd, 1980.
• Quarks Heart.: Sleeping Gypsy Press, 1980
• Oxymoron Nosedive Prayers (From Birth to Birth). Alexandria, VA: Deep Forest, 1985. Unpaged. (logo woodcut by Kristen Wetterhahn).
• Musical Trees. Mucho Somos Series Number Seven. Berkeley: Mother's Hen, 1986. ISBN: 0914370529 (photograph by Meghan).
• Portrait Poems. s.l.: s.n., 1986.
• Beantrip. Berkeley: Canterbury Press, 1987. ISBN: 0933753063
• Jazz Pajamas. Mucho Somos Series Number Nine. Berkeley: Mother's Hen , 1987. ISBN: 0914370545
• Nightmare Vitamins.: Bad Girl Press, 1987.(drawings by Kerstin Stope)
• Muse News. Accordion Series, No. 8. San Francisco: City Lights, 1988.
• Songs of the Soul. s.l.: s.n., 1988.
• I'm Addicted to Everything Poems. Berkeley: Embassy Hall Editions, 1990. ISBN: 0-940945045
• Only A Cage Should Be In A Cage. Santa Cruz: We Press, 1993 or 1994.
• Wild Law Civilization.
• " How To Be God (2)". in Red Coral, January 2000.
• New Poems.: Boustrophedon, n.d.
• Birth to Birth. Deserted X Press, 2002. ISBN 0-9725153-1-3
• How To Be God NOW. Deserted X Press, 2002. ISBN 0-972153-0-5

Edited

• New Now Now New Millennium Turn-On Anthology 2001-3000 & Beyond. Emeryville, CA: A.M. Fonda, 2001.

H. D. Moe - Touch of a Poet

Bibliographical information courtesy David G. Dodd.

See also

• List of U.S. poets

References

• A Medal for H.D. Moe: Tributes and poems (edited by Jack Foley & Clara Hsu). Createspace, 2013.

External links

Poems

• H.D. Moe profile & poem at Poetry Hotel Press

Prose

• Moe on Poetry

About

• "H.D. Moe (1937-2013): Fluxional, Vehicular and Transitive" by Jack Foley, at Poetry Flash
• H.D. Moe Official website