The vegetables on the Moore family’s supper table, along with the potatoes and the fish, more often than not had been harvested and/or caught, cleaned, and cooked by the family themselves. Lenard D. Moore— now a poet, a gardener, a writer, a lover of jazz—learned early the value of reaping what you sow, in the best and most literal sense. Food on the table was the result of teamwork. Lenard’s fascination with words, his connection with earth and garden, took shape when he was growing up in Eastern North Carolina. There he learned about the summer garden, and by age 12, he took charge of prepping, planting, and maintaining his family’s summer vegetable patch. At the same time, he became interested in the written word. To him, poetry and gardening are interwoven.

Writer and poet Lenard D. Moore grew up in Eastern North Carolina, the inspiration for his story “An Onslow County Tradition,” which was featured in the anthology, The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food, published by Eno Publishers. Lenard is an award-winning poet who writes in various poetic forms. He has been writing haiku for more than 40 years, and was the first Southerner and African American to be elected president of the Haiku Society of America. He writes and publishes fiction and nonfiction. Lenard has published several books, including The Open Eye and Forever Home. His most recent book is entitled A Million Shadows at Noon, published by Cuttlefish. Lenard is founder and director of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective. He is also a contributor to 27 Views of Raleigh: The City of Oaks in Prose & Poetry, and The Elizabeth Keckley Reader, both published by Eno. His work is featured in All the Songs We Sing: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective.