Birth date: 
1847
Death date: 
1920
Birth town: 
Country: 
USA

Julia Ann Moore, the "Sweet Singer of Michigan", born Julia Ann Davis in Plainfield Township, Kent County, Michigan (December 1, 1847–June 5, 1920], was an American poet, or more precisely, poetaster.

Some comparison to William McGonagall is worth making. Unlike McGonagall, Moore commanded a fairly wide variety of meters and forms, albeit like Emily Dickinson the majority of her verse is in the ballad meter. Like McGonagall, she held a maidenly bluestocking's allegiance to the Temperance movement, and frequently indited odes to the joys of sobriety. Most importantly, like McGonagall, she was drawn to themes of accident, disaster, and sudden death; as has been said of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, in her pages you can count the dead and wounded. Edgar Wilson Nye called her "worse than a Gatling gun".

Her chief claim to contemporary note, however, is that she inspired Mark Twain to create the character of Emmeline Grangerford in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Grangerford's funereal ode to Stephen Dowling Botts.

Moore was also the inspiration for comic poet Ogden Nash, 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".

Poems by this Poet

Displaying 11 - 20 of 59
Poemsort descending Post date Rating Comments
Christmas 31 July 2013
2
Average: 2 (1 vote)
0
Croquet by Moonlight 31 July 2013
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
0
Dear Love, Do You Remember 31 July 2013
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
0
Early Days of Rockford 31 July 2013
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
0
Fourth of July 31 July 2013
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
0
Gently on the Stream of Time 31 July 2013
3
Average: 3 (1 vote)
0
Grand Rapids 31 July 2013
3
Average: 3 (1 vote)
0
Grand Rapids Cricket Club 31 July 2013
5
Average: 5 (1 vote)
0
Hattie House 31 July 2013
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
0
Hiram Helsel 31 July 2013
3
Average: 3 (1 vote)
0

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