February 2, 2024—Leslie Moore—poet, printmaker, and animal lover—will be the guest speaker at Bowdoin Library’s Special Collections page-turning event of the double-elephant folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. Bowdoin owns one of 120 known copies of this magnificent book and the library invites the community into the reading room on the first Friday of the month to reveal a new page. Following “the flipping of the bird,” Leslie will read poems from her new book Grackledom (Littoral Books, 2023).

The Cafe Review
"What Rough Beasts: Poetry/Prints"
by Carl Little
Spring 2023

“The tradition of the poet / artist goes back at least to William Blake and his “Tyger.” Moore carries it on with her knock–out combo of verse and linocuts.”

The Café Review

Rain Taxi Online Edition
"What Rough Beasts: Poetry/Prints"
by Jefferson Navicky
Spring 2022

"For those artists drawn to both the visual arts and poetry, there must come a moment when one wonders, what format now? How is this particular idea calling to be expressed in the world of tangible expression? This dilemma animates the central dichotomy of Leslie Moore’s book of poetry and prints, What Rough Beasts."

Rain Taxi

The Portland Press Herald
"Poems and prints commune in 'What Rough Beasts'"
by Jeri Theriault
March 6, 2022

"Leslie Moore’s “What Rough Beasts” reads like a field notebook transformed into art."

The Portland Press Herald

The Lewiston Sun Journal
OFF RADAR: "What Rough Beasts: Poetry/Prints"
by Dana Wilde
January 7, 2022

"The 40 or so poems in the book are playful, wry, vivid expressions of encounters with animals in the neighborhood. And the two dozen or so expertly reproduced drawings and prints, some black and white, some color, sharply evoke the homespun mood of the poems. And packaged in the plain-spoken, down-to-earth imagery is a preoccupation with what is going on in animals’ minds. This is more complicated than you might think."

The Lewiston Sun Journal

The Ellsworth American
"Making Her Mark: Artist Leslie Moore masterfully melds poems and relief prints"
by Letitia Baldwin
March 30, 2022

"In 40 poems and 22 relief prints, Moore pays tribute to all the wild animals that she has discovered, watched and delighted in over two decades living in Maine. In “What Rough Beasts: Poetry/Prints,” all manner of birds are celebrated from Bohemian waxwings gorging on berries above a snow-fed stream to an immature, sharp-shinned hawk found dead on her front stoop in Belfast."

The Ellsworth American

May 2016: A selection of linocuts from my Waldoboro group of printmakers are currently in exhibits at Hope Health Family Practice in Camden Maine and the Congregational Church in Rockland, Maine.

Blue Hill Library
May, 2013
Blue Hill, Maine

Brooksville artist Leslie Moore will exhibit her artwork in a new show called "Brooksville Bestiary" at the Library during the month of May. The show includes pen-and-ink drawings and woodblock prints of wild animals, farm animals, dogs, and cats from 1994 to the present. Moore says, "I have been drawing animals since I could first wield a crayon. Anything with fur or feathers quickens my pulse and makes my heart thrum." Known for her commissioned PenPets portraits-detailed pen-and-ink drawings of dogs and cats-Moore also draws and carves local livestock and the wild creatures she sees out of her bedroom windows and along the coast of Maine. Her artwork is warm and playful, capturing both the physical likeness and the spirit of each subject.

Moore is mostly self-taught, although she did spend a summer during college in Perugia, Italy, studying print-making and figure drawing at the Accademie di Belle Arti Pietro Vannucci. She is a staff artist for The Brooksville Breeze, and has illustrated two books: Sailing Language by E.D. Smith and T.R. Moore (Sheridan House, 2000) and All My Dogs: A Life by Bill Henderson (David R. Godine, 2011). In the past decade Moore has had 11 solo shows at various venues in Brooksville, Blue Hill, Castine, Trenton, and Canon Beach, Oregon.

Moore grew up in California suburbs with dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, parakeets, tropical fish, and any wild creatures she could sneak past her mother. She rode horses every weekend from the ages of five -15, and always wished she could live on a ranch or a farm. She earned a BA and an MA in English from the University of California at Berkeley, and taught English for 25 years in South Korea, Massachusetts, Mali, Turkey, and Maine. She finished her teaching career at Maine Maritime Academy in 2006 and has been practicing her art ever since. Moore and her husband, Tom, moved to Brooksville, Maine, in 1996. They live on Cape Rosier, next door to Holbrook Island Sanctuary. This exhibit is in memory of Kinsey (2002-2012), Moore's muse, a designer dog she rescued from the Bird Bazaar in Istanbul.

PenPets Poster Art
Blue Hill Co-op Cafe
April-May, 2013
Blue Hill, Maine

PenPets Poster Art
Parker Ridge Retirement Community
September, 2012
Blue Hill, Maine

"One man and his 13 dogs"
by Leigh Paterson
2/2/2012

Click here to see the show!

"A dog may be man's best friend, but many dog lovers end up with numerous canine companions over the course of a lifetime.

Bill Henderson has had a total of 13.

The author of All My Dogs: A Life has dedicated his memoir to a shaggy mutt called Lulu who he describes as his "life dog".

The book covers his own strict upbringing, rocky times in his marriage (he credits a dog with saving it), and the birth of his daughter. Each of the chapters is named after one of his dogs.

Describing it as a "mutt memoir", Henderson says the book is half about humans and half about dogs. His conclusion is that dogs are more than just man's best friend, they are an essential member of the whole family.

Sketches courtesy of Leslie Moore."

The Washington Post
"Four Books About Canine Friends"
by Yvonne Zip
1/25/12

"Pushcart Press founder Bill Henderson had the sound idea of chronicling his life through the dogs who shared it, and All My Dogs (Godine, $19.95) handily wins Best in Show. From Trixie, who taught him “to play without ceasing,” to tragic Ellen and Rocky, Henderson honors each one. Sophie, an adopted Labrador, saved his second marriage and watched his daughter grow up. “Opie was a rescue beagle — rescuing not him but rather his elderly owners.” Patient Lulu helped Henderson when he had cancer diagnosed. Accompanied by lovely drawings by Leslie Moore, memoirs like this don’t happen along very often."

Lenny
Editor's Letter
"Bringing on the New Year," by Claudia Kawczynska, Editor-in-chief
The Bark
No. 68, January-February, 2012, page 8

PenPets Poster Art
SPCA of Hancock County
January 2012
141 Bar Harbor Road, Route 3
Trenton, Maine 04605

"Duke," by Bill Henderson
The Bark
No. 67, November-December 2011, page 33.

Also a review of All My Dogs by Claudia Kawczynska, Editor-in-chief of The Bark, page 95.

All My Dogs, A Life, Bill Henderson, Drawings by Leslie Moore.
Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2011.