Anique Sara Taylor’s book Civil Twilight is Blue Light Poetry Prize 2022. Where Space Bends was published by Finishing Line Press 2020. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her chapbooks chosen Finalist in 2023 are: When Black Opalescent Birds Still Circled the Globe (Harbor Review’s Inaugural 2023 Jewish Women’s Prize); Feathered Strips of Prayer Before Morning (Minerva Rising); Cobblestone Mist (Long-listed Finalist by Harbor Editions’ Marginalia Series). Earlier Chapbook Finalists: Where Space Bends (In earlier chapbook form 2014 by both Minerva Rising & Blue Light Press.) and Under the Ice Moon (2015 Blue Light Press). She holds a Poetry MFA (Drew), Diplôme (Sorbonne, Paris), a Drawing MFA & Painting BFA (With Highest Honors / Pratt) and a Master of Divinity degree. Follow her on Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and her blog. Sign up for her newsletter.
Where
did you grow up?
You’d
think that would be a simple question, but it opens into what could be a
generational novel, or a commentary on social history in America. Here’s
the very short version: Connecticut.
The
real answer. I grew up in a town in Connecticut that had something called a “Gentlemen’s Agreement.” There’s
a 1947 Gregory Peck movie about it. It’s a real estate agreement to prevent
Jews from buying property or living in town.
My
grandparents had moved there from the Lower East Side, New York City in the
early 1900s. Both Yiddish speaking from Russia, they’d moved to the town before the town
was restricted. They ran the general store.
Throughout
my school years, I tended to be the only Jewish kid in my class and grade.
Although I was never afraid of being beaten up, never ashamed, and always proud
of my heritage, from an early age I was aware of being different, set apart
from the others. This caused an experience of seeing the world on simultaneous
layers with a slight feeling of dissonance.
What
does this have to do with poetry? In short, I was an outsider. Whether one is
an outsider by history, parentage, experience, or character, it forces us to
question accepted perceptions. We continually experience what the majority
takes for granted, along with other layers only we are aware of. It is often a
creative’s
personal launch into becoming a poet. This questioning, this split vision is a
gift to a poet. It has been for me a precious learning I wouldn’t trade.
When
did you begin writing?
Writing
was an important part of my life from a very early age. But writing, as a
writer developed in different waves of becoming over the years.
When
I was a toddler, my Grandma played 78’s from decades long past. I loved and
memorized lyrics to early pop music. I memorized poems from poetry books that
were read to me. I started writing journals to myself in my head before I
learned how to write.
From
school writing assignments, I still have my first two books written in the
first grade. One is called The Story of the Witch-Ghost. In fourth grade
I remember writing a poem where every stanza finished with “A
woman’s
work is never done.” I wrote reflections and vignettes, first in notebooks,
then with typewriter through junior high and high school, and a book in letter
form to my parents my first semester away from home.
My
writing continued to weave through NYC years where I collaborated with writer
friends. I participated in readings throughout the East Village. I was active
in St. Mark’s
Poetry Project and studied in year-long courses with Alice Notley and
Bernadette Mayer.
My
personal writing distilled into a deeper commitment later when I took a night
school class at Sarah Lawrence. My teacher there introduced me to Drew
University’s Masters in
Poetry program. The force of the program’s required study/writing/reading
deepened me in ways I’d always hoped for but couldn’t
find on my own. Its community of exquisite poets and poetic thought tunneled me
into a passion I’d always searched for.
Though
it was after graduation and later, that commitment to my Morning Practice,
brought growing change and fulfillment.
Why
did you choose short form poems?
Although
very long lines were characteristic of my inner voice, I was also experimenting
with merging short phrases from scientific research and personal experience.
When
entangling life situations necessitated knowledge of many details, people,
steps that I had to keep track of, I feared issues would always crop up to
interrupt my progress in exploring and finishing creative work. I knew I needed
something. Even though I was a night owl, I set out to experiment with a plan.
I’d
wake up at 5am and write for three uninterrupted hours, before offices opened
and I had to deal with business details.
This
dark-morning dreamtime work enabled me to spend longer times with a poem, so I
could try to bring it to the best level I could. I followed sparks of interest.
I experimented.
Possibilities began to form from many directions, as did simultaneous projects.
I began to envision how scattered work could connect into groupings. One became
my first book, Where Space Bends. In long form poems, it follows a year
of aging in an enchanting mountain village, while dealing with symptoms of
long-term Lyme Disease.
While
working on longer poems, I was researching a variety of subjects that sparked
my interest. I explored information on the nature of galaxies, spirochetes,
Jewish holidays, Tarot, biology, geology and seasons, plus the history of Lyme
Disease. Within this exploration, I began to notice nuggets of fascination,
exciting diction, something alive at the bud within short phrases.
I
continued to compose short poetic phrases that sometimes rang strange,
sometimes metaphoric, as their outer universe echoed my inner universe. These
collections grew. They filled computer folders over a few years. As I began to
feel the need for culmination, I think the form chose me. A short form
chapbook.
What
inspired you to write it?
The
continual need to create is at the center of almost all of my work. As I worked
in the ways I described, two feelings converged. One, the outer business
requirements felt like they were pulling me away from my necessary center. I
felt I was losing myself. Two, semi-finished work was piling up. I questioned
whether I could use my experimental pieces to deepen into a finished whole.
Despite
the life pull of family, health, business, houses or things that separate me
from a place and time aside, a dream-time quality was necessary for me to
write. And I needed a project to carry me through.
I
needed to experiment with something new, even though I didn’t
know if it would work. With that I set a project goal with real-life deadlines.
A chapbook. A thirty-page book. I turned to my folders of metaphorical phrases,
short lines and personal work.
While
researching I’d
been working on a non-fiction book. I discovered civil twilight was a specific
time designation. It was also the time of day my father had died swimming in
the Caribbean. Combining several numerical landmarks of people in my life, my
father’s
death and the poetic time of day, I created the form. Thirty poems, thirty
words, five lines each, with my father’s ghost weaving through the book, also
as a metaphor for other losses in my life.
I’d
never attempted a short-form project before. I hoped the challenge would carry
me through a complicated time, without knowing if I could create within it work
that would satisfy the poetic elements I desired.
Was
it possible for me to work within so tight a form? Within the thirty words, I
wanted imagistic nouns and metaphors that could push both meaning and
abstraction. I wanted surprise within a dream quality, assonance and
alliteration that could push poetic diction. I wanted the rhythm of the long
line.
What
is this book about?
Though
meaning can be the moving force of a poem, poetry is often about the use of
language to find ways to create surprise and delight. To create bright strands
of diction that stand on their own apart from meaning, with words as our palette.
In
this book even with the challenge of cutting extraneous words, I was courting
the sprawl of the long line. The use of strong images to create metaphors that
could juxtapose the surreal and dream-like to the concrete. Metaphors to
crystalize illusive emotions into musicality within the short phrase.
I
wanted to delve into emotions dealing with caution, risk, the ephemeral nature
of our lives, but also the sharp edge of beauty. Some themes that lace through
are mountains, rivers, wildlife, grief, loss, celebration, the fleeting nature
of outer seasons juxtaposed to our inner seasons, the macrocosm and the
microcosm, finding our own path, what haunts us, and what we continue to haunt.
How
is it similar to other books in its genre? How is it different?
There
are many short forms of poetry. Haiku. Tanka, Cinquain, Triolet, Sijo are some
of the smallest. Monostiches are a forcefully poetic one line that has the
scope of a full poem. Along with slightly longer poems like the sonnet or the
villanelle, there are hundreds of classical forms. And there are more recent
forms, along with countless forms being invented by poets even as you’re
reading this.
Micro-poetry
is being created to work within the various constraints of different social media platforms. It’s often accompanied by wonderful new
and older acronyms, OMG like FOMO, GIF, PIN, and every sort of new invented
word.
Many
forms count syllables. Many call for strict meter, rhythm, or line repetition
patterns. A form often contains a puzzle which can soften the process when
writing about painful subjects. The music of rhyme and repetition uses sound to
enhance the magic. There is so much beautiful work that’s been done in form. If you search for
lists of forms or by individual name, you will find endless poems and books
with examples.
But.
There is danger in writing in forms, especially in early stages of developing
as a writer. Adhering to syllable counts, rhythms and especially end rhymes,
often forces a writer to sacrifice imagery, metaphor, irony, paradox or other
meaningfully deepening tools in order to serve the beat or the end rhyme.
Civil
Twilight’s five-line, thirty-word quintains
were my own personal challenge. But I vowed I would not pursue it if I felt the
form hindered the magic, instead of deepening it.
What
is the most important thing readers can learn from your book?
There
is always something below the surface. There is something complicated within
the simple. Music in grief, life can unfold in ways we never expected. Even
though we may be surprised to learn that control is an illusion, it is
important to keep moving forward. To tend what we love. To sense exquisiteness
within all that is around us. To know ephemeral magic is always unfolding.
Where
can readers purchase a copy?
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
For
a signed copy, please visit the contact page of my website. Include your name,
snail mail address, and PayPal email. I will send a $15. request, then mail you
a copy.
What
is up next for you?
My
daily Morning Practice is always at the core of my work. As a creative person,
it keeps me connected to the center. I’ve finished (again) Feathered
Strips of Prayer Before Morning, which has been chosen Finalist by Minerva
Rising and Harbor Review Press, in different early forms. A chapbook of thirty
pages, each poem is a prose poem and has seventy-seven words.
Although
it is a finished piece, I’m planning
to use some of it toward a full-length book that incorporates other sections in
different, individual forms. After having just finished the chapbook, I’m
working on individual poems that are much longer and don’t have specific forms.
Cobblestone Mist, a finished full-length
book, is being sent out to look for a home. Its poems center around a poet and
children’s
performer on NYC’s Lower East Side in the 1980s, who is
trying to find her way and her creative center amidst frightening symptoms of
an invisible chronic illness.
I’m
very involved with events. I’m hoping to perform a piece on bears
and living in the mountains, for March Monologue Madness. I’ll
be appearing with a wonderful group at The Poetry Barn for a performance from a
workshop on From Page to Stage. Community is so important.
I’m
preparing to have teaching-point essays to send out from my Newsletter. All of
these will be listed on my website and in newsletters and social media. Those
interested can sign up at my website, AniqueSaraTaylor.com
Is
there anything you would like to add?
Though
we need to be individualists who follow our own path for our creative process,
learning from others is also powerful. It is important to always continue
learning from books, classes, workshops, and community groups.
I
consider
self-care a necessary part of being in the best place to work on my writing.
Because of a history of chronic illness, I became a life coach specializing in
creativity and natural health. For creatives in this society, it is important
to learn what is necessary for us to be in what I call the Good Zone. Whatever
is in our lives, something always seems to come up to pull us away from our
work, therefore the concept of being “in
training” for the Good Zone has been a huge support for me.
For
me self-care involves a clean, high-nutrition diet, exercise, QiGong, Yoga,
meditation and a community of creative friends, which are all at the core of
maintaining a place in the Good Zone. This is where I create the best. I find
that health inspires inspiration, and inspiration inspires health.
For
me, these are all a part of the brocade of a creative practice.
Take
heart. Sometimes it requires persistence, resilience and faith.
Follow
what you love.
Purpose
is a tonic.
Posts
