Description
Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. "For some thirty years, John Taylor has been diving as a critic into the torrents of modern European poetry; that is, into the different national literatures which, in addition, have accepted as their own kin some of the best American poetic voices, such as those of Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, or Wallace Stevens. John Taylor is very familiar with the rich aquatic life of these European rivers; in fact, he is one of the best-informed connoisseurs of what is going on in continental poetry, with all its lively diversity. But his critical books, which show his attentive, empathic reading of work written by others in the various hearts of European poetry—France or Germany, Italy or Serbia, Greece or Slovenia, or the more northern countries—are not the topic of this introduction. This introduction is about his own poetic prose, which relates his early childhood in the American Midwest. Yet in their stylistic techniques and symbolic depths, his writings indeed subtly reflect certain kinds of European poetics."—Veno Taufer
Author Bio
John Taylor is a writer, critic and translator who was born in Des Moines in 1952 and has lived in France since 1977. He has written seven books of stories, short prose and poetry, notably THE APOCALYPSE TAPESTRIES (Xenos Books, 2004), NOW THE SUMMER CAME TO PASS (Xenos Books, 2012), both books available as e-books, and IF NIGHT IS FALLING (Bitter Oleander Press, 2012). He has also published the three-volume Paths to Contemporary French Literature (2007) and Into the Heart of European Poetry (2010) - all four books published by Transaction Press. For Chelsea Editions, he has translated three large collections of poetry and prose from French: Philippe Jaccottet, AND, NONETHELESS (2011); Pierre-Albert Jourdan, THE STRAW SANDALS (2011); and Louis Calaferte, THE VIOLET BLOOD OF THE AMETHYST (2013). From Italian he has translated Lorenzo Calogero, AN ORCHID SHINING IN THE HAND: SELECTED POEMS 1932-1960 (Chelsea, 2015); and Alfredo de Palchi, NIHIL (Xenos- Chelsea, 2017).
Author City: Saint-Barthélemy d'Anjou FRA