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.

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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.

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

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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.

Antioch Review contributor, John Taylor releases new book on European poetry

08 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Grace Curtis in Poetry, Translations, Uncategorized

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European Poetry, John Taylor, Poetry Today, Translations

John Taylor’s regular Antioch Review column, “Poetry Today” covers European poetry. Many of his columns are now also available in his new collection, A Little Tour through European Poetry from Transaction Publishers.

Taylor’s long history with the Antioch Review

In late 1996, John Taylor wrote a letter, accompanied by a few clippings, to Antioch Review editor, Robert Fogarty, offering his services as a book reviewer. By then, he had been living in France for twenty years and had been a regular contributor to Anglo-American magazines and literary supplements for well over a decade; but, as a long time reader of the Antioch Review, he had wanted to contribute.

His first review, about Frederic Tuten’s Van Gogh’s Bad Café, a novel, was published in the Fall 1997 issue. Subsequently, Taylor reviewed Julie Hecht’s Do the Windows Open? By the Winter 1998 issue, however, Taylor had shifted to reviewing poetry exclusively. His first article on poetry was on two translations of Rilke, one good, and one very bad. Since then, Taylor has worked side by side with poetry editor, Judith Hall, with the goal of expanding the audience for European poets in America. Taylor adds,

Next to me is a box containing the printed-out e-mail correspondence between Judith and me. This correspondence is full of ideas about what we could highlight in the journal—but then we must decide. Alas, there are only four issues per year.

Taylor’s contributions during his first seven years at the Antioch Review were primarily book reviews. One exception of which he is particularly proud is an essay on the French poet Georges Perros—likely, the first essay ever published in English on this poet and short-prose writer. The essay, appearing in the Summer 2000 issue, was reprinted four years later in the first volume of his three-volume series Paths to Contemporary French Literature; in 2011, the same essay helped him win an NEA grant to translate Perros’s work. In 2015, this translation—a selection from Perros’s three-volume cult classic, Papiers collés—will be published by Seagull Books. Taylor says he is indebted to the journal and to Judith Hall, who encouraged him to write this essay, and for many other projects that have unfolded as a result of his affiliation with the Antioch Review.

The column, “Poetry Today” is born

It was during the spring of 2004 that Judith Hall, Robert Fogarty and Taylor conceived of the “Poetry Today” column. The first installment—on the Slovene poet Edvard Kocbek—appeared in the Winter 2005 issue. The idea behind the column was, and continues to be, to place the emphasis on the poetry, not on the personality of the poet; to focus on deserving, insufficiently known poets; and to feature foreign poetry because of what Taylor considers to be a lack of interest in poets writing in languages other than English, as shown by other American journals.

Taylor has devoted the column to foreign, non-English-language poetry. One exception is his Summer 2015 column on Melvin Tolson. His Fall 2009 column on British poet Georges Szirtes, who is of Hungarian origin, was also perhaps an exception, although Taylor notes: “I felt Szirtes consorted perfectly well with many other foreign poets we’ve featured.”

Taylor’s reputation and expertise on all things European poetry is undisputable and his contribution to the Antioch Review has been immense. In 2013, he was awarded the highly regarded Raiziss/de Palchi Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets for his work on the translation of Selected Poems by Lorenzo Calogero—another poet who was first featured in the Antioch Review, in the Winter 2013 issue.

Of his new book, A Little Tour through European Poetry , Taylor says,

One day in 2013, when I added to this group of poets I’d brought to an American audience through the Antioch Review, others whose work I had analyzed in other magazines, I realized that I had taken a sort of ‘grand tour’ of European poetry. But I prefer to call it a ‘little tour,’ like Henry James’s ‘little tour’ of France in 1883-1884. There’s still so much to discover.

In all, Taylor has contributed forty-four articles and translations to the Antioch Review since 1997. Of those, twenty are included in his new book.

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Writing on the Train by John Taylor

Antioch Review contributor, John Taylor releases new book on European poetry