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1 Local Warehouse Poetry- A to Z


Body of the World

by Sam Taylor

Body of the World Cover

ISBN13: 9781931337267
ISBN10: 1931337268
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

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.

About the Author

A graduate of Swarthmore College and former Michener Fellow in the MFA Program at University of Texas, his poems have appeared in numerous publications, and received the Florida Review Editor's Poetry 2002 Poetry Prize. He splits his time teaching at UNM-Taos and caretaking for a snowbound wilderness refuge.

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poetry12, December 9, 2006 (view all comments by poetry12)
In Body of the World, Sam Taylor uses his unique and expressive writing style to relate an impassioned and cohesive message to the reader. The material he covers in this book is extensive, ranging from the nature of human existence, to religion, to everyday experiences. The language he uses is both aesthetically pleasing and very proficient in articulating his thoughts. Reading the book gave insight into Taylor?s thoughtful perception of the world, and inspired me to think in a similar manner.
One theme that ran through the book was religion and the idea of God. In a book entitled Body of the World it is natural that the human search for spirituality is included in the subject matter. In many poems, Taylor mentions God or a religious figure in passing, as means to articulate a though. An example would be in ?Anonymous,? where religion is not the main focus of the poem, but there is religious language included. In other poems, such as ?John 3:16,? Taylor takes on religion directly, and examines its function and mysterious nature. The poem starts by saying, ?The perfection of God that rose Jesus out of its body ?,? thus stating the divine and all powerful nature of God. The poem, however, goes on to list imperfections in human life of which God is also a part. It describes the abuse of a girl at the hand of an uncle, and later a ?fat man lying on the couch eating chicharones, scratching his balls, chafed red from the quarry.? In this way Taylor questions the assumption the God is all good and all powerful. This is a question that is central in any religious quest, and the manner in which Taylor discusses it is visually descriptive and effective.
My favorite poem in the book was ?The Lost World.? In this poem, Taylor brings up the idea that there are things in life that are beyond words people use day to day. He describes moments and situations in which the feelings and emotions felt cannot be related in speech the way it is used now such as ?wildflowers/that orgasm in this vacant lot,? and ?two people thinking the same/thought in the same moment.?. The poem has a twinge of nostalgia, as the title indicates. ?The Lost World? implies that something once existed that has now been lost; in this case, the appreciation and language for the moments he describes. The nostalgia is furthered by the lines, ?Though any child will tell you the name of the blinking towers on the hill or the two roads crossing, no one knows the word for laughing and crying at the same time.? These lines state that children, who symbolize the future and generations to come, are fluent in the language of mundane aspects of life, but have no words for the things and ideas of greater importance. This gives the sense that as human existence presses on, more and more of what was once sacred and treasured will be lost. The poem describes many special, hyper-emotional moments, which are never spoken of because of the deficiencies in common language. Taylor addresses this in a poem, the idea that feelings and emotions can be expressed through arts like poetry; people have to be willing to try an alternate method of artistic speech, and they have to be willing to listen. It is the abstract and indescribable moments such as, ?a flash of divine mercy,? that art forms are able to express in ways that speech never could, and with this poem, Taylor is trying to express his sadness at what he feels is a lack of such expression.
The other poem that stood out to me was ?Accident.? It described a tragic event, but did so in a way that was easy to relate to emotionally, even for someone who has not actually experienced it.
?He leaned down
to her but she did not move. He was terrified then
of the silence he felt at that moment
which was not the quiet of trees or the moon

or of hot tea, but the silence of somewhere else,
of a lake being where a girl should be.?
This passage left me with a haunting emotion, even though I?ve never experienced tragedy to that extent. Just imagining what this sadness would be like left me with chills, and his vivid description of the silence instilled true fear in me. He wrote about the event simplistically, and the language was straightforward, just like the title, ?Accident,? but the manner in which he let the story unfold put a powerful emotional charge into it.
I enjoyed Taylor?s writing and really connected with the way he carefully constructed his stories. He made powerful statements which skillful use of language and narration. The book was an intriguing view into Taylor?s take on the nature of the world and it offered interesting ideas on the questions at the crux of human existence, such as the higher power of God, why we are here, and how we interact with one another.
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davidtaylor, December 7, 2006 (view all comments by davidtaylor)
Body of the World Andy Taylor

In the early poems of Sam Taylor?s book, it seemed that he had no hope for tomorrow. He repeatedly drew inspiration from topics that had a stoic nature to them, such as the poem ?ARC?. In this poem, he speaks of how the individual becomes just another unimaginative piece of the puzzle of the world. I feel like this is what he means by the line ?you will be a two piece suit between traffic lights.? To be honest, this train of thought thoroughly depresses me, since it is diminishing the potential and the creative individuality of each and every person to nothing more than just another drop in the bucket of the work force.
He also leads me to believe that he has come to the conclusion that the world is standing still by the fact that he repeatedly makes long lists of simple, everyday objects. He does not give these objects life by showing their purpose through his poems, but rather sticks them out there as if to say that they are nothing more than another bland piece of society. For example, to draw from ?ARC? again, Taylor states ?the digits of pi will follow her down unrepeating streets past crates of oranges, gaping mouths of fish, into other rooms, books that you will never read?. This line gives me the image that these streets, though they may be different from each other, never vary individually in the day to day activities that go on there. This is especially true of the reference to the books that one will never read, since it seems to essentially be saying that all one has learned prior to walking down these streets is all that they will ever know. Maybe this is some grand metaphor for a loss of innocence through the process of maturing for the individual. Even if this is not true, I find that this poem and others at the beginning make me feel as if I?m trapped in something that I can?t get out of.
Then I came to the poem ?John 3:16.? From this poem, I?m assuming at one point he was a Christianor maybe still is, though with a bit of spitefulness towards God. The body of the poem is a fairly clich? way of saying that God is letting his people down by allowing harm to come to them. The last line, however, is pure dynamite. ?Because the white light just goes on forever.? I don?t even know what to say to that. It seems like he?s telling God that he could forgive a few slip ups and maybe understand the fact that humans must endure some hardships before they can enjoy eternity, but that God?s lack of vigilance is so great that he can no longer make excuses for why God would not do something about the pain in the world. I this is how many people fall away from Christianity, once they find that they can?t come up with reasons for why God would put the human race through such terrors as, for example, rape. Though this poem may be depressing in nature like the others, it made me feel alive when I read that last line because I had to keep reading it over and over again to feel like I was grasping what he was saying. Why would he put it like that? On the one hand, he?s throwing down the gauntlet in regards to God. But then he comes back with this sort of lost last line that makes it seem as if he?s searching for an end. It shows that he?s still hoping there?s an out for God to use as his excuse for the evil in the world. Whatever the reason, it makes me respect him much more than if he had just said ?To Hell with God.?
The second part of his book starts out with a poem that depicts the speaker as a witness of what takes place after a man loses his lover in an automobile accident. I enjoy this poem because it doesn?t focus on how terrible the tragedy was, while at the same time not coming out and saying that everything would be alright. It just takes the reader to the point where they start thinking about how they would feel in that situation and then ends. I guess I like this because it reminds me of one of those make-your-own-ending books I used to read in elementary school. Except this time, the scenario is something that I?m sure I or my loved ones will have to deal with eventually. In my opinion, this is related to the art featured on the cover of the individual wrapped in a blanket of color that makes the individual almost blend in. To me, this symbolizes that the person is lost for answers to a multitude of questions, symbolized by the many different colors, and that that individual is torn between different sides of himself, shown from the varying colors of his form seemingly stretching to different parts of the portrait. Thus, it portrays the man who has just lost his loved one, searching for an answer from the world as well as one from himself. It seems this could also be related to the poem ?John 3:16,? due to the fact that Taylor seems caught between his belief in God and his disgust at the state of the world we live in. Therefore, I think the painting is there to symbolize the many different routes, and thus challenges, a person can take in life as a reaction to the depression that dripped off the pages in the first few poems.

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dnh6u, December 4, 2006 (view all comments by dnh6u)
Overall, I found Sam Taylor?s Body of the World an interesting read. It provides a unique look into the author?s mind that I feel could not have been harvested from any one individual poem. Each poem flows well, not only singularly, but in context of the other poems as well. Strong recurring themes help create this sense of flow and cohesiveness.
One of these themes is the death of the poet?s mother. This plays prominently in a number of the poems, sometimes as a continuation of a larger idea, at other times, seemingly random in its presence: a sudden flash into Taylor?s mind at that exact moment. Taylor even devotes a lengthy passage to the subject in the second half of ?Original Sin,? juxtaposing her death to the beauty of an iris that sits near her deathbed, only to be recollected by the friend who left it after his mother?s death.
Death is also present as a general theme in Body of the World. Taylor explores it in many manifestations spread throughout the length of the book. At times, it is the death of his mother, as in the above mentioned poem; at other times, it is the death of a friend, as in the poem ?Accident.? In this particular poem, he reflects on the sudden and unexpected death of a friend?s lover, and the state that his friend is left in afterward. Another entire poem is about a Holocaust gas chamber and its victims, entitled ?The Undressing Room.? Several more references to the Holocaust are found in other poems. Sometimes, Taylor abandons specifics and just looks at the idea of death as a generality, interspersing short fragments into poems and injecting them with a new meaning altogether.
Directly beside death, Taylor vividly describes scenes of everyday life. The most simple and mundane tasks suddenly become profound in his poetic language and complex turns of thought. In ?Next,? as he steps forward to buy a cup of coffee inside a bookstore, he reflects on the larger meaning of life and death, and relishes in a specific moment that is made his. Everything from everyday life is examined in a way that makes it not so everyday; a young man viewing a painting in a museum, people waiting for the train, two little girls running down the street: each is given a profundity it did not possess before.
Beyond this, Taylor also studies the idea of God, of religion, and a supreme deity. He does not talk of God as some remote, inaccessible idea, but rather approaches his study from a human understanding. He finds God in the bum on the street corner, he imagines Jesus as a teenager, face riddled with acne. He acknowledges God as the same being who created both Jesus and two little Mexican girls, who speaks to both the normal woman fraught with doubt and the rapist. He studies God as a constant in everything in life, in death, in the simple, the mundane, and the everyday.
Perhaps Body of the World is best approached as an examination of the human condition. It is a look at life in all its forms. This is not only supported by the continuous themes throughout the book, but also by the organization of the poems themselves. The poems are not organized by subject, but are rather just put there, as if by the order in which they occurred to the poet. They are a continuous stream of thought, a continuous stream of life as it is lived. This is reflected within the individual poems as well. It is even evident in the title Taylor chose for this collection, Body of the World. He seems to see the world as a collection of people and thoughts. People, their thoughts, and their experiences make up the ?body of the world? in a very corporeal and at the same time spiritual way.
One of my favorite poems in this collection is ?Arc,? possibly because of how it embodies the overall theme of the book. It is a comprehensive look at life, from birth to death. Each step of life is described with concrete realities, hinting at something deeper, something just beneath the surface. Throughout the poem, life seems to speed by, seen only as flashes of experience: ?sneaking in to read your father?s manuscript,? and ?a two piece suit between traffic signals.? This approach to life, one that embodies each individual experience as that of something bigger, is the attitude that Taylor reflects through the entire collection. Each poem is a unique individual, and yet yields to the larger flow, much as each person is part of the ?body of the world.?

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Product Details

ISBN:
9781931337267
Author:
Taylor, Sam
Publisher:
Ausable Press
Subject:
General
Subject:
Nature
Subject:
American - General
Subject:
General Poetry
Publication Date:
September 2005
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
79
Dimensions:
8.62x5.56x.31 in. .32 lbs.
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