The audience in the Michigan Union University Club sported T-shirts that read, “Word of Mouth Tour,” “Spoken Word Artist” and “Black Ink Collective.” The lights dimmed, and students and guests of the University rose from the capacity crowd to approach the microphone and deliver their poetry.

During both the open mic session and the poetry slam competition at the Jan. 16 event, the poems addressed peace, politics, relationships, Vietnam, current news issues, hate and racism.

The audience responded with applause and shouts of approval for poets with performance persona names of Queen of Wisdom, Supreme, Father Chickenstein, The Mafia Poet and Flame.

But it was Jessica Care Moore who stole the show with her poems about Black children, death sentences in Texas and women who like pink. The Detroit native, who teaches poetry and publishing workshops to high school students in New York while maintaining her position as CEO of her Atlanta-based publishing company, says she found her poetry voice in her hometown. A trained journalist who worked her way through Detroit television and newspapers, she moved to New York City to become immersed in the growing spoken-word circuit.

Moore took New York by storm, the first poet to win amateur night on “It’s Showtime at the Apollo.” At the U-M event, sponsored by Michigan Union Programs, she also was warmly received. The audience gave her an enthusiastic standing ovation, for poems such as “I am a Work in Progress,” which ends:

“I was born writing/ but will be taught to wait/ I am an incomplete sentence/ a work in progress/ and I’m not finished/ yet.”

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