Maryville

by Joelle Taylor

A POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION

'Taylor's poetry is as dangerous as it is dexterous . . . A wildfire blazing free' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'Kaleidoscopic in its breath, structure and humanity . . . Both selfless and intimate' ANTHONY JOSEPH
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From the T. S. Eliot and Polari Prize-winning author of C+NTO & Othered Poems comes an innovative collection exploring the scars, hopes and potentialities of dyke counterculture and the queer underground.

With a vividly sketched cast of characters, award-winning poet Joelle Taylor uses the Maryville butch bar as a lens through which to consider the underground histories of queer London. The violence and pain of oppression and the beauty and intimacy of community are rendered in awe-inspiring high definition in a collection as filmic as it is familiar. A hybrid chronicle, magic trick, prayer and insurrection, Maryville conjures ghosts back to their bodies, a community to their feet.

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'Sexy, fearless – and ravishingly beautiful' NEIL BARTLETT
'One of the most powerful voices of our time . . . Joelle Taylor is a genius' CACONRAD

Genres: Poetry, Lesbian, Queer

181 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 6, 2025

About the author

Joelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright, author, and editor.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Playwright, editor and poet Joelle Taylor reintroduces characters from her celebrated collection C+nto and Othered Poems. Set in England, her innovative, visual poem spans the period from 1957 to 2007; reconstructed via the experiences of the regulars of a secluded, East End, dyke bar The Maryville. Despite its shabby appearance, The Maryville is a space of radical reinvention, of friendship and hard-forged community. Taylor’s central characters meet as teenagers, together they live through shifting legislation, hostile political and social environments, violence, misogyny and moments of intense intimacy and tenderness. Taylor’s called her book both ghost story and love story, one that chronicles a history of resistance and survival against all odds. Equally it’s a celebration and exploration of butch identity deeply rooted in Taylor’s own life and friendship circles – one character is based on a close friend who’s now dead.

Taylor’s intent on addressing misperceptions of lesbians and lesbian communities but also on reclaiming lost or hidden histories from the lesbian squats in Brixton’s once-notorious Railton Road through Greenham Common to the travails of the Thatcher Years, Section 28 and beyond. Taylor uses techniques drawn from TV script-writing, playing with typographical layouts, so that this is as much caught up with images as it is with words on a page. It took me a while to connect with the style, and there were times when Taylor’s creative choices didn’t quite work for me. But ultimately, these occasional missteps didn’t detract from the poem’s overall force. There’s far more here that moves and provokes. As a piece it’s often exceptionally powerful, imbued with flashes of unexpected, piercing beauty.

Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Clemson University Press for an ARC

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Maryville: An old breathless bar at the end of an abandoned alleyway in East London. She is gaudy, overstated, discrete & defiant. She is a nation of exiles and outcasts.

Maryville revisits the four butch dyke friends - Jack Catch; Dudizile; Valentine; and Angel - who featured in Joelle Taylor's C+nto and Othered Poems, and follows their lives (and the surrounding context) during the years from 1957 to 2007 through the lens of the Maryville bar , which also featured in Taylor's brilliant, and oddly prize-neglected, novel The Night Alphabet.

This is technically a poetry collection, but one in a distinctive, cinematic format, as Taylor explains:

Maryville is a poetry collection in the shape of a television series, using the language of film to steer a way into each poem, to focus, and pull out into the wide-angle narrative. It is a visual poem because I want you to see us. I want us to see ourselves. I want us to recognise that our exclusion from the mainstream was the very thing that gave us the space to rethink the potentiality of our lives. The dyke bar was a space of radical reinvention of the self, a space where community ruptured into friendships and bar fights, where politics was ingrained on each knuckle.

A sample from the opening of the 1977-1987 section:

MISE-EN-SCÈNE 1977-1987
SOUNDTRACK: Mighty Real, Sylvester
EXTERIOR, NIGHT. THE MARYVILLE BAR.
|| THE CAMERA ZOOMS IN ON THE PINK NEON SIGN THEN DRIFTS DOWN TO THE CLOSED DOORS. THE SALOON DOORS GESTATE. A NEW ERA IS BORN. CAMERA PUSHES THROUGH THE DOORS & DOLLIES THE BAR ||
inside / women have left their breasts at home / & brought someone else’s teeth / femmes wear their hair / like a borough wears a riot / a quiver of butches / gaze at handprinted fanzines / their faces notice boards / that others leave their problems pinned to / a new band member / a meet up in the feminist library / Wild Court / a room in a co-op / a Brixton squat plotted / someone has a spare rib / & we grow from it / there is the scent of Greenham Common / an ansistral fire / burning somewhere stage left / a group of unfinished faces / hunch the floor / curled around placards / a chorus of thick pens choiring / headlines drip into t-shirts / & the music mutates / into a violence you can tap your feet to / make-up arrives / & swarms across the women / lips as cordoned off crime scenes / eyes fixed in the expression / of a slasher heroine’s last hurrah / hair, a predator / jeans torn into chant / slogan mouth / while the mirror ball casts ghosts / across us. ||
CLOSE ANGLE OF JACK CATCH BEHIND THE BAR, POLISHING SNOWGLOBES. SHE OPENS AN EMPTY ONE & PLACES A CHARGE SHEET IN IT. SHE TAKES DOWN ANOTHER, AND POSITIONS A WHITE HANDKERCHIEF WITH A LIPSTICK KISS IN ITS CENTRE. THE LAST ONE, SHE FILLS WITH SMOKE FROM HER CIGARETTE, THE IDEA OF AFTERSHAVE ||

Taylor is a brilliant performer of her poems, and I suspect the audiobook would be the best way to experience this novel (alongside the playlist which the author recommends listening to while reading - I made my own Spotify list). But still a strong read on the page - powerful, passionate and poetic.

[Carl (Hiatus. IBB in Jan) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of short, chronological, interlinked poems from the Maryville "universe(?)" framing dyke visibility in the UK (along with violence against women). This collection reads as one story, three tb series episodes, which were framed into her novel The Night Alphabet as prose. This was a unique experience and I highly recommend it. To be published early November.

Full review to come.

[Louisa Laurman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pagina na pagina vraag ik me weer af hoe het moet voelen om een genie te zijn op het niveau van Joelle Taylor. Hoe het moet voelen om zo scherp te zijn, zo ritmisch en om mensen zo efficiënt te vatten en mij zo efficiënt te raken. Het is filmisch, het is emotioneel, het is een fantastisch poëtisch verhaal over pijn en liefde en verlies en elkaar blijven vasthouden. Maryville is er voor wie haar nodig heeft, waar er altijd iemand zal zijn die op je letten kan. Ik ben in 2000 geboren, maar Maryille laat me ervaren hoe het moet zijn geweest. Lees dit alsjeblieft. Je hoeft niet eens echt aanleg voor poëzie te hebben, het leest als een film. Mijn handen jeuken om het te vertalen en ik ben oneindig verdrietig dat ik het niet nogmaals voor het eerst kan lezen.

[Kristiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything Joelle Taylor writes is a masterpiece; in Maryville, Taylor combines cinematic camera shots, soundtrack, stage direction, and poetry to portray the lives of four lesbians, alongside a cast of guest stars, centred around a bar, The Maryville.

Taylor's poetry is a tribute to the Lesbian community - particularly to masculine presenting Butches, Studs, and Bois. The narrative Taylor weaves is one of belonging, chosen family, love, and heartbreaking loss - highlighting the violence this community has faced at the hands of men.

So, while Maryville is structured episodically, Taylor has crafted an anthem reminiscent of Audre Lorde's 'A Litany for Survival', and a work of poetry worthy of recognition.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

an unbelievably creative and stunning poetry collection that drips love & resistance from its pages— what a gorgeous and heartbreaking love letter to dyke community. I have found a new favourite writer in Joelle.

[Frende Lorentzen · Rating 4 out of 5]

gråter

[star · Rating 4 out of 5]

this has got to be one of the most creative poetry collections i've ever read. the author uses the setting of a butch bar as a unique setting to tell the story of four butch lesbian friends as well as the underground story of a queer london. the structure of this is so unique; it's part film script, part poetry, part stream of consciousness and it blends together to make this unique creation. it felt very immersive and every page would bring something different. this felt like i was watching a tv show because of how it was written, so dramatic and invigorating! maybe i wish this could have been longer just because i wanted to spend more time with the characters. if you're open for an experimental poetry collection i can highly recommend this!!

[Caitlin Holloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Joelle Taylor's poetry, there's such a power in her use or misuse of poetic/narrative techniques. Giving chronological poetry with accompanying script notes to draw you in to a sense of place and of movement? Genius.

I have however spoiled reading Taylor's poetry for myself. I adore it but The Night Alphabet was so gorgeous that I now constantly crave reading another novel from her. I loved reading Maryville but it just made me notice how much I wanted to read more of her long-form descriptive writing.

[Sineadbarry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I forgot how much i loved poetry till I read it.