Poetry. African American Studies. "[Mervyn Taylor] is strenuously after what all honestly skilled craftsmen seek: tone, accent without affectation. The sense of search, of the avoidance of flash, mutes his meters to an admirable degree, and tone, which he found remarkably early, keeps him separate and unique. These are many words for what is perhaps the most difficult aspect of good verse: honesty. Mervyn Taylor is an honest poet, and that is high and sufficient praise indeed."—Derek Walcott

Author City: BROOKLYN USA

Mervyn Taylor was born in Trinidad. He is the author of three books of poetry: AN ISLAND OF HIS OWN (1992), THE GOAT (1999), and GONE AWAY (2006), and a CD, Road Clear (2004), done in collaboration with bassist David Williams. About the poems in his latest collection Debbie Jacob wrote in her column in the Trinidad Guardian, "Lost in the cold and unable to return home to the tropics, the West Indians of Taylor's poems reach as far as they can: Florida." Mervyn Taylor lives in Brooklyn, New York.