Thylias Moss facts for kids

Thylias Moss (born February 27, 1954) is an American poet, writer, and artist. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and has African-American, Native American, and European roots. Moss is known for her poetry, essays, children's books, and plays. She is also an experimental filmmaker and sound artist.

Moss created a unique idea called Limited Fork Theory. This theory explores how people understand art and the limits of that understanding.

Early Life

Thylias Moss was born Thylias Rebecca Brasier to a working-class family in Ohio. Her father gave her the name Thylias because he wanted her to have a name that no one had ever had before.

Moss remembers her first few years as being very happy. Her family lived in the upstairs part of a house owned by an older Jewish couple, the Feldmans. The Feldmans treated Moss like their own grandchild.

When Moss was five, the Feldmans moved away. A new family moved in, and their teenage daughter, Lytta, began to watch Moss after school. During this time, Moss went through some very difficult and unhappy experiences. Later, she said that these events made her feel like she couldn't talk about what was happening to her.

At age nine, her family moved to a new neighborhood. She started attending a school where most of the students were white. She faced bullying and racism from other students and even some teachers. Because of this, she became very quiet in school and didn't speak much in her classes until she was in college. It was during this quiet time that she began to focus more on writing poetry, which she had started doing at age seven.

Adult Life and Career

Moss got married when she was 16. She attended Syracuse University from 1971 to 1973 but left because of racial problems at the school. She worked for several years and had two sons, Dennis and Ansted.

In 1979, she went back to college at Oberlin College and earned her degree in 1981. She then earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of New Hampshire.

After college, Moss taught English at a school called Phillips Academy in Massachusetts. Since 1993, she has been a professor at the University of Michigan, teaching English, Art, and Design.

Her Evolving Work

Moss's early poetry was inspired by the Black Arts Movement. This movement used art to promote Black pride and call for fairness. Her work often explored themes of racial justice.

Over time, her poetry became more experimental. She started playing with the way words looked on the page and how that could change their meaning. This led her to develop her Limited Fork Theory and a new art form she calls the POAM, which stands for "product of act of making." POAMs are a mix of film and poetry. They use movement, sound, and other senses to add more meaning to a poem.

Limited Fork Theory

Moss came up with an interesting way to think about how we experience art. She uses a fork as a metaphor. A fork has separate prongs (or tines) that branch out. Moss says our minds also branch out to understand a piece of art.

She calls it "Limited" Fork Theory because, just like a fork can only pick up certain kinds of food, our minds can only grasp certain parts of art. Our own experiences and understanding limit what we can take away from a poem or a painting.

To explore this idea, Moss created her POAMs. These are multimedia projects that use as many senses as possible, like sight, sound, and movement. Many of her POAMs can be found online as podcasts and on YouTube.

To explain her complex ideas, Moss sometimes uses the nicknames Forker Girl or Forker Gryle. She uses these names on her blogs and Instagram account to share more about her life and theories.

Selected Works and Awards

Poetry

• Wannabe ... Mama Gallery of Realities' Red Dress Code: New & Selected Poems (2016)
• Tokyo Butter: Poems (2006)
• Slave Moth: A Narrative in Verse (2004)
• Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler (1998)
• Small Congregations: New and Selected Poems (1993)
• Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky (1991)
• At Redbones (1990)
• Pyramid of Bone (1989)
• Hosiery Seams on a Bowlegged Woman (1983)

Other Writings

• New Kiss Horizon (2017), a romance novel
• Tale of a Sky-Blue Dress (1998), a memoir
• Talking to Myself (1984), a play
• The Dolls in the Basement (1984), a play
• I Want To Be (1995), a children's book

Major Awards

• MacArthur Fellowship (1996)
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1995)
• Dewar's Profiles Performance Award (1991)
• Whiting Award (1991)
• Witter Bynner Poetry Prize (1991)
• NEA grant (1987)