Timothy Moore is currently a 26 year old candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Memphis. He graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts as an English Major with a concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Memphis. After graduation, he joined a trio of poets which successfully launched a series of powerful spoken word events that grew to become known as Uncensored Live!

Timothy Moore turned the corner from a guy with a pen to a poet that writes. Under the direction of well known poet and author Mr. Gordon O’Sing and Mrs. Sarah Mccullum, O’sing challenged Timothy, “…to write beyond what you feel like you should write; instead, write the truth.” Having cut his teeth on the local Memphis Slam and poetry scene, Timothy ventured out nationally. He has performed in over 15 states including Nevada, Alabama, Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia, both Carolinas, Kentucky, and numerous cities. He has been featured on local television shows, performed on large stages in front of hundreds as well as intimate settings of just a handful, and has been commissioned to do weddings, funerals, retirement parties and one birth. Some of his influences are poets: Langston Hughes, William Shakespeare, Beau Sia, Saul Williams, Regie Gibson, Nikki Giovanni, Yusef Komunyakaa, and God (from whom all my creativity flows). He believes in using poetry as a dialogue to solve community problems. “Words are only as good as the belief and action behind them,” he stated.

Interests and Current Projects
With the support of fans, friends, and family, Timothy hopes to complete and release his first book. Timothy continues to tour and work on his craft while simultaneously achieving a Masters of Education degree. “The youth is our future and their words have to be protected,” has become his mantra as he hosts workshops geared to encourage underprivileged youth. Timothy looks forward to teaching in the city school system and developing a series of workshops for at risk children. Tim Moore can be reached at cupidspoet1906@yahoo.com.

We just listening

We just listening to the record spinning
watching thugs pass by each giving his personal account of hood life.
Our children falling to their knees
in front of T.V.’s to worship the blinged out platinum images.
Idols, each new artist some sort of twisted demi-god.
They each repeat by their street laws by memory.
Their lessons begin to blur the imitated art.
We listen to the nightly news, as they start to rob the members of churches
they used to attend.

Instead of singing in choir stands, now they just Krump and bend
to the music that comes from the speakers.
Loudly, blaring messages, overwhelming brain cells with cool,
our children continue to get dumbed down till they start to drool.
Role model empty, full of characters draped in gold and silver, the videos are many,
With rappers lining up to give you twenty pieces to your son for his deliverance
into new hip hop culture. And We?
We, the parents don’t care.

We don’t care. The kids are quiet not bothering us.
So we just turn it up. The bump. The blast. The treble.
The bass knocking the images steadily into our hoods.
So, why are we even perplexed
or wonder why things are no longer all good?
When BET has replaced sesame street and
Uncut is on everynight. Big booties rockin, rockin, everywhere.
Our daughter’s replicate and change names to bust-it babies and we listen.

We give our son’s big diamond encrusted crosses to carry
As if being Black, still isn’t a big enough weight to burden
We slow them down with the weight of blingdom.
They in turn can’t run fast enough from wrong.
They have to walk and get caught with the white gold fangs
that they had to have ‘cause all the other boys got ‘em.
Even if later they won’t have enough teeth
left to eat, or survive with.

We just listening while poisoning ‘em each
And one by one we are watching our babies trip,
And one by one we are watching our babies fall,
And one by one we are watching out babies die.
While we just sit back, remote in hand, and listen
And listen,
And listen.

Because God ran out of crayons and colored me brown

Because someone screamed out, “Hey nigger, get away from my son,”
We stopped playing basketball. “Hey nigger, get away from my son.”
A statement I’ve spent a lifetime replaying, trying to find the meaning,
or the why?
Why I got to be a nigger? I remember the day till this day

Most of all I remember watching a brown leaf fall from an oak tree.
I remember wondering if somehow the anger from that man had torn the leaf off.
Disrupted the harmony of nature
to create this tension, I gave him the ball.

He spit at my feet. “Go home, play with the others.”
I remember wanting to say something back
Wanting to unleash a violent verbal attack but my tongue swallowed itself.
I stood. Leaf at my feet. I wondered if it had felt alone like me when it fell.
Free falling through space at a rate that only Father time could control.
Bending, and contorting, desperately holding itself together reaching out for Mother Earth’s Embrace.
Hug me. Just hug me. I wondered if that little brown leaf had felt like,
like, like me? As it reached out for a hug to replace the hate, I looked at it. Brown,

Small, Courageous Leaf maybe it did not fall but jump wanting to be free.
I sat there, at the base of that tree,
watching nature cry. The tree seemed to bend to hug me as the rain began. It dripped over the edges around me. I looked out, stood up,
Held my head up high and walked home.

In the rain, no one could see a black boy become a man and cry.
In the rain, no one could see a black boy become a man and cry.