Body of the World

by Sam Taylor

Body of the World, Sam Taylor’s first book, is the work of a poet whose sense of what it means to be human is inseparable from the physical world, about which he writes with unnerving intimacy. The voice, while grounded in the familiar landscape of twenty-first-century America, is also transparent. It regards itself as integral to that place in time, so that to speak of the human mind and body is to speak of the world, just as perception of the world becomes perception of the physical and mental self: not himself, but the human self. Thus, his subject is the enduring mystery of consciousness in all its embodiments: memory, the rain, a credit card, death, an air conditioner, the scent of eucalyptus. His language is like granite, a substance unto itself yet at home in the flux. As we enter what the poet has called elsewhere “a global age of distance-less information and virtual experience,” Body of the World is a necessary book. Oh the body in its bedouin sleep. Always awake,
always walking blocks of city scaffolding,
always wrapped in rain, hot cocoa, cinnamon.
Always a curled embryo, always a curved umbrella,
always the handle of an unknown suitcase,
always the echo that will not fit
inside a cathedral. Always a brief April. A graduate of Swarthmore College and a former Michener Fellow in the MFA program at The University of Texas at Austin, Sam Taylor is a poet, nonfiction writer, and yoga teacher. His poems have appeared in numerous publications and received The Florida Review Editor’s Award in Poetry in 2002. He splits his time between teaching English at The University of New Mexico-Taos and as a caretaker for a wilderness refuge in the San Juan Mountains during its snowed-in winter months.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Sam Taylor is the author of three books of poems, Body of the World (Ausable Press), Nude Descending an Empire (Pitt Poetry Series), and The Book of Fools: An Essay in Memoir and Verse (Negative Capability Press), a National Poetry Series Finalist. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, he lived for several years as a wilderness caretaker in New Mexico and trav- eled around the world on the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship. He currently tends a wild garden in Kansas, where he is an Associate Professor and the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Wichita State. His poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, AGNI, and The New Republic. You can find him on the web at www.samtaylor.us and @samtaylorpoet.

The Book of Fools: An Essay in Memoir and Verse
Nude Descending an Empire
Body of the World

Reviews

[Kasandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunningly good. Some of these were literally jaw-dropping, and I had to read a few aloud to other people. A definite keeper. Luminous, haunting, intriguing, and otherworldly throughout, this is one of the best books of poetry I've read in years. Favorites include "Arc", "Accident", "Matinee", "Hologram", and "Brief, Accidental Orchestras".