It is a Tuesday night at Reflections Cafe in Providence, RI, the night of the weekly GotPoetry Live Open Mike and Reading. The crowd is composed of the usual mix of regulars, newcomers and visitors. Midweek, mid-July, with thunderstorms hovering, it”s not surprising that tonight”s crowd is small, nor that the atmosphere of the open mike reading was, in the words of the venue”s host for the night, Tony Brown, mellow. But that ends when Laura Moran is announced as the feature, and the room goes wild with applause.

The performer is well-known and loved in Providence, the small city with a big poetry presence on the national scene. This is her home turf, the city where she held sway as Grand Slam Champion and organized the 2000 National Poetry Slam competion. Even so, her smile as she steps up to the mike is almost shy, diffident, as if she still has not quite grasped that this applause is really, truly for her. Tall, slender – almost fragile in appearance – there is something of the tomboy and something of the little girl in her still. She bows her head a moment, presses her fingers to her eyes, breathes… then lifts her head and begins to speak. The room”s background bustle drops immediately to a hush that lasts throughout her performance.

You are not mine to frame.
You cut your own shape
in the street.
Against sky, your bones stand
alone.

The lines are from what Moran calls “My new favorite poem – of mine,” she corrects hurriedly. “I have lots of other favorites by others.” Tonight, she opens with this poem, Daughter, a song, a hymn, really, written to her daughter. In Worcester, two nights earlier, she closed with it. Both times, the experience is breathtaking – and it is a tribute to the power of her words that on a second hearing, I recognize the lines and find myself anticipating them, watching their effect on others in the cafe who have not heard it yet.

There is a great deal that can be said about Laura Moran”s poetry. Indeed, a great deal has been said about Laura Moran”s poetry. She has been called a “hot poet at the top of her game” (by Bob Holman of United States of Poetry), “one of the most beautifully lyrical poets ever to bridge the space between page and stage” (by Taylor Mali), a “poet”s poet” (by Daniel Solis) and “a wordsmith of the highest caliber” (by Kristen Knowles of the Cape Cod Poet”s Theater). None of this can prepare you for the presence that IS Laura Moran taking the stage, or the intricately crafted beauty and power of her poetry. Laura Moran is the beautiful progeny of the marriage of poetry and performance. I had the rare pleasure of listening to and watching Laura Moran perform her poetry not once, but twice this week, and I can confirm every word of the rave reviews written about her CD release Live Bait. They do not lie. They do not even exaggerate.

Laura Moran is a consummate writer and performer. She has been touring and performing her works across the U.S. for ten years, and in that time has racked up an impressive series of accomplishments. Recipient of the 1992 Jean Garrigue award, Moran has graced the stage at the National Poetry Slam competition a number of times between 1996 and 1998 as a member of the Seattle and Providence teams. She was the first Providence Grand Slam Champion in 1992, and Grand Slam Champion for Seattle in 1996. In 1999, the Mayor of Providence awarded her a citizen”s citation for artistic contribution to the city, and in 2000, she organized the National Poetry Slam hosted in Providence.

But to view Moran as strictly a spoken word/slam poet is to limit your appreciation of her work, which has appeared in Defined Providence, Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza 1994, Children Remember Their Fathers, Chokecherries: SOMOS Series Anthology 2002, and Quix Quarterly, among others. She has published three volumes of poetry, several broadsides and two CDs. Her work reads as beautifully as it performs – in fact, in reading one discovers intricacies of interwoven words and wordplay that slip past the ear. And yet, reading off the page alone misses the subtle nuances of her voice inflection, and the way that her arms and body weave and sway, knitting the lines into place. Her performance marries meaning, motion and sound into a seamless artistry that is both modern and mythical, as poetry has always been meant to be.

And even then, there is more to Laura Moran. A recent recipient of NEA funding as one of the 2004 Emerging Writers at the Center for the Book Arts in New York City, Moran also spent four years as vice president of Projective Verse, Inc., introducing the arts of poetry to children of all ages. She has recently bought a house in the Catskills, and her future plans for it include creating a writers” retreat with residencies. At the 2005 National Poetry Slam, she offered workshops and outreach at a local high school, and she recently served as one of the presenters at the Poetry Cross Training Conference at Oneonta.

There is so much more that could be said about Laura Moran”s poetry – the way that she delves into family experiences, digging into the meat of relationships with clawed fingers to drag out the gritty details, the power of her low voice to still even the most boisterous crowd, the broad scope of her poetry. But it all pales in the light of hearing her works with your own ears. Laura”s CD Live Bait is available at CDbaby.com, where you can also hear clips of her work. Go there and listen. It”s well worth it.