From Emily Dickinson To Julia Moore In Fiction

A line in a mystery novel, Emily Dickinson Is Dead, made me think of my cousin.  The line was "...(he) was abandoning Emily Dickinson, getting ready to rip and claw at somebody else.  This time it was Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan."

Just as a fictional Emily Dickinson symposium was hosted in Massachusetts, a real Julia Moore event, the Julia Moore Poetry Parody Contest, was held Michigan until budget cuts killed the poetry star (apologies to "Video Killed The Radio Star)."

According to this participant, it was "...Tom Powers, the retired Flint Public Library research librarian who'd been the demented brain behind the rowdy Julia A. Moore Bad Poetry Contest...".

An article in the Chicago Sun Times described Tom's thought process:

FLINT, Mich. - Julia A. Moore certainly took her lumps while she was alive.  So librarian Tom Powers figures: Why stop now?

Tom Powers is my cousin and the Julia A. Moore contest was his brainchild.

Though I never attended any of the Julia A. Moore contests, I'm guessing they were nothing like the fictional Emily Dickinson symposium that was in the thick murder and mayhem.