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Category Archives: On Poetry

Writing on the Train by John Taylor  

05 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by Grace Curtis in On Poetry, Poetry

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Antioch Review, Ekphrastic Poetry, European Poetry, John Taylor, poetry, Writing Poetry

 

John Taylor is a leading authority on European poetry. He has contributed translations and articles on the subject to the Times Literary Supplement and to the Antioch Review since 1997. His most recent book, A Little Tour through European Poetry, is available from Transaction Publishers. Taylor also writes poetry in addition to writing about it. Here he talks of his creative process.

***

John Taylor1

The essays, book reviews, the Antioch Review “Poetry Today” column—all these pieces are written at home, in my little French house in Anjou, in my study lined with books some of which go back to my teenage years in Des Moines; and the translations are done there as well, with a bilingual dictionary just to my right on my desk, or sometimes on another table, or even on the floor when I am revising. But the personal writing?

For years now, I’ve written my poems and short prose texts almost exclusively while riding on trains. Between here (Angers) and Paris, and especially between here and Nantes, a trip I take regularly because of a regional literary association in which I participate.

Why write on trains? Because I am no longer surrounded by those well-thumbed dictionaries and uncorrected galleys, because I can isolate myself in the train car, especially if I shrewdly analyze the train schedule and select a time slot in which the regional train is rarely crowded; then I slip into a window seat on the less picturesque side of the train, put my bag on the aisle seat, and extend my legs along the floor to discourage anyone from sitting across from me—I am not really misanthropic, there are plenty of available seats. Soon the majestic Loire River will be flowing parallel to the rails, kindly not soliciting my attention.

I pull out my notebook, my blue pen. Although I type my book reviews and translations directly into the computer, the personal writing is produced first in the notebook. And I correct those first drafts in the notebook as well, before transferring them into the computer for further revision. Maybe if I could write the poems and short prose texts in my study at home, I would type them into the computer from the onset. But I cannot. I write them out by hand on trains.

Recently, fortunately (I must say), the number of meetings in Nantes has increased. Moreover, I have been working on some collaborative literary-artistic projects with an artist-friend, Caroline François-Rubino.

She has produced three series of paintings that have solicited poetic responses from me. I receive her work by pdf, print it out, slip it into a folder. Then I tuck that folder, along with one full of administrative documents for the regional literary association, under my arm before taking bus No. 4 to the train station.

hyblots-05

Caroline François-Rubino – from “Portholes” series – 2012, ink and watercolor on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm

Today, entrenched in my window seat in the regional train, which is actually more comfortable than the internationally touted TGV, I’m looking at a photocopy of one of Caroline’s paintings from her series called “Portholes.” The series immediately reminds me of my boat trip from Piraeus to the island of Samos in August 1976. That was no ordinary boat trip, no vacation whatsoever. During that boat trip, I decided to stay in Europe, after a year spent studying at the University of Hamburg, and not to return to the United States. I was twenty four years old.

The ticket collector has just asked me for my ticket. I show it to him, along with my senior citizens’ reduction card (for nearly four decades have gone by since that decision made on the boat to Samos). He says “Merci, Monsieur” and goes down the aisle to the next passenger. Now I’m truly alone and will remain so for 58 more minutes. (My uncrowded train is also the slowest one between Angers and Nantes.) I’m already studying the photocopy of Caroline’s painting, open my notebook, and jot down:

                                               you knew
                                        new night would
                                                encircle
                                           day breaking
                                            
                                             ever less lit

***

John Taylor is the author of Paths to Contemporary French Literature (volumes 1–3) and Into the Heart of European Poetry. He has written several books of fiction, short prose, and poetry, most recently The Apocalypse Tapestries and If Night is Falling. He writes for the Times Literary Supplement and authors the “Poetry Today” column in the Antioch Review.

 

 

 

 

© 2015, The Antioch Review

 

John Taylor Receives the 2013 Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship

16 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Grace Curtis in Interview, On Poetry, Poetry, Translations

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Italian Poetry, John Taylor, Lorenzo Calogero, Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship, The Antioch Review

John Taylor was honored on October 25, 2013 at the Poet’s Forum in New York City as the recipient of the 2013 Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets for his work on the translation of Selected Poems by Lorenzo Calogero.

He is the author of two poetry collections: If Night Is Falling (Bitter Oleander Press, 2012) and The Apocalypse Tapestries (Xenos Books, 2004). His other published works include books of short stories and prose. Also a translator, Taylor wrote the critically acclaimed, three-volume Paths to Contemporary French Literature (2004, 2007, 2011) and Into the Heart of European Poetry (2008)—all four books published by Transaction. He lives in Saint-Barthélemy d’Anjou, France.

A critic of contemporary European writing for Anglo-American readers, Taylor has long been a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. He has written the “Poetry Today” column in the Antioch Review since 2005. We asked John some questions about receiving the 2013 Paiziss/de Palchi Fellowship. His responses follow. Continue reading →

Poetry Today: “On the Strassenbahn with Klaus Merz’s Poetry”

02 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Grace Curtis in Essay, On Poetry, Poetry

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John Taylor, Klaus Merz, poetry, The Antioch Review

From The Antioch Review, Summer 2013, Volume 71, Number 3

John Taylor writes of translating Klaus Merz’s poetry in his piece in the current

Klaus Merz

Klaus Merz

issue of The Antioch Review. You can read the full article recently republished in Poem Daily.

“Even my own
still unthought thought
you are already
beginning to read
on my forehead
Beloved

Such poems are very simple in form and diction, yet they make one consider one’s own minor joys and lurking turmoil. What else can I say? Can any other critical commentary be put forth except that of underscoring their psychological subtlety? Merz raises no rhetorical façade. He does not try to impress with lexical or syntactic brilliance; whatever formal “modernism” he has assimilated, it consists here of little more than some suppressed punctuations between lines. If he is slightly ironic, as with the word of endearment unexpectedly employed at the end of the above poem, the irony does not make us sneer or snicker, but rather mediate more sincerely—this is the paradox of the irony—on a certain feeling of amorous uneasiness from which we may also suffer.”

John Taylor is the author of the three-volume essay collection, Paths to Contemporary French Literature, as well as Into the Heart of European Poetry, all published by Transaction. He has recently published If Night is Falling (Bitter Oleander Press) and Now the Summer Came to Pass (Xenos Books).

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