Overview

James Baldwin, author and civil rights activist, stated that to be Black in America and relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all of the time. In this audacious debut poetry collection, The Horizon Never Forgets, Steven Moore offers us drops of honey in the tender moments we sometimes experience, especially a mother's love. But also, drops of fire and rage when he writes about being Black, when the world ignores the pain and refuses to address the ongoing struggle to live while bearing the weight of racism. Readers feel the rage, the burn, the fury of the Black experience, and the urgency for change-but also the uplift and hope that still reside within love's possibilities.

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9781963695151

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Reviews

Steven T. Moore leads us down into a painful labyrinth, to the heartbreaking things one human can do to another. Yet, just when all hope seems lost, Moore returns to the image of his mother. This is not a political work. It is a humanitarian work that only a poet of Moore's caliber could do. This is the universal desire to open the heart-that boundless, colorless, greater good that beats within us all.-karla k. morton, 2010 Texas State Poet Laureate and author of Turbulents & Fluids The pages of The Horizon Never Forgets are torn apart by love, hate, racism, and honesty. Steven T. Moore confronts us with a combination of hard realism and lyrical forgiveness. Into this poet's world we are taken, and the only way out is to listen.-Earl S. Braggs, author of Moving to Neptune, New & Selected Steven Moore's vision is clear, even as time and family and justice slip underneath him. In The Horizon Never Forgets, Moore writes for his mother and her ""lifetime of fighting / for her sons to be free."" Here he is able to stay with pain-personal and systemic-and so allows his readers to do the same.-Leah Naomi Green, author of The More Extravagant Feast and winner of the 2019 Walt Whitman Award At first, Steven Moore's debut poetry collection feels too hot to hold. The rage. The racism. The needless losses experienced daily by Black Americans. But when you open your mind and heart to the indignities and injustices revealed in these pages, you see how looking the other way only further scars and berates our fellow humans simply going about their lives. Let us not look away from the horizon ablaze with prejudice and fear. Let us name the names lost and not forget that we are all connected. Let us not stop hoping and working for change.-Linda Parsons, author of Valediction This unflinching collection of poems reveals the complexity of Black male rage, giving us insight into debilitating horrors of negotiating medical, educational, cultural, interpersonal, and structural racism. Perhaps this powerful collection opens up space for the possibility of transcendence for all who empathize with the struggle.-Cherise A. Pollard, author of Outsiders

Author Information

Steven Moore often says that his mother is the wellspring of his poetry. She read and recited poetry to him before his birth and through his growing-up years in locales as varied as Central America and Gurnee, Illinois. Moore received his B.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and his M.A. and Ph.D. are from the University of Nebraska. The recipient of several teaching and scholarly awards, he is a university professor of English who often teaches poetry workshops and a class called Bon Appétit: Savoring Poetry & Good Cooking. While writing poetry, he immerses himself in jazz, the blues, and the spirit of Langston Hughes. Published widely in literary journals, he is also a bestselling children's author and the author of two scholarly books examining Black rage.

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