Thylias Moss

Bio

Thylias Moss was born on February 27, 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio. Known for her expansive, eclectic poems, she has earned multiple awards, including the Witter Bynner Prize, an NEA grant, and fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation. Although many of Moss’s poems discuss race and gender, these subjects are, explains scholar Langdon Hammer, simply “starting points for her work … her poetry makes such facts of identity seem unfamiliar, their meanings not to be predicted, unavailable to the naked eye.” Known for startling metaphors and vivid imagery, Moss’s later work demonstrates an expansive imagination that seeks to connect at times wildly disparate subjects.

Photo from: Poetry Foundation, Marcia Ledford - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thylias-moss

Reading Materials

Poems:

• Botanical Fanaticism by Thylias Moss

• Interpretation of a Poem by Frost by Thylias Moss