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Death Claims DCF Sunday Poet Todd Moore

The following email was forwarded to me by Lisa Gill on Friday.

Hi All.
Just heard from his son Theron that Todd Moore, our beloved 'Outlaw' poet, passed away this morning unexpectedly. No further information is available at this time and there are no plans as yet for a local memorial services.Theron says he will be buried in Northern Illinois.

Todd had a long and vibrant career as a writer and spoken word performer with multiple publications and recordings of his work to his credit. He will be particularly remembered for his epic poems on John Dillinger, the American folk hero bank robber. Todd's work is highly original and skillful and attracted attention both in the United States and abroad. His essays on poetics and violence in American culture ring true and are a mighty contribution to the canon.

I'm sure that his family would like to hear from any of you, friends and fans alike, particularly if you have any good memories and yarns to share about Todd - you can contact Theron Moore

With appreciation,

Dale Harris

Todd Moore was featured in the Duke City Fix Sunday Poem series on November 22.

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Comment by cc on March 14, 2010 at 9:52am: Thanks for sharing this, here, Ditchrider. I loved hearing Todd read on Mark Weber's Thursday KUNM Jazz at noon show - Mark and he are good friends and Mark would have him on a lot. His voice earnest and expressive in its higher tone, great used on many of his Dillinger poems that when you saw them on the page were only a few words to a line - long narrow things. His storytelling manner of reading/writing was perfect for the radio, and then enhanced by Mark's great jazz selections (like the theme song to Perry Mason). Early on - say 7 to 8 years ago when he was on Mark's show, he shared a lot of his own life along with his poems, too. It put his choice of style and subject matter into a personal perspective for me.

Todd was a consummate western history follower, so his poetry had all of this knowledge laced in it, like place names and names of real folks. I went to his reading at Acequia Booksellers last July with Lawrence Welsh and got into a great conversation with him on Larry Mc Murtry. Actually, he read a whole bunch at Acequia, so it coulda been at another reading that I had that conversation with him. To hear his knowledge of the span of time here in the west - and of all its "outlaws" especially - gave me deep satisfaction. Then his poetry portrayed it in a conversational tone that made the past very present.

This would be a good Sunday morn - a springtime stormy one - to pull up his poetry here and read it.