Thank you Corey Cook, Editor of Red Eft Review , for publishing my poem “I Laugh When I Look Out the Bedroom Window”. If you are interested in reading it, please click the link above.
This is a new poem that started when I stopped for a minute to watch the indignities aging requires of us and to reflect on how fast our “slick-skinned days” pass. I hope you enjoy it.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
I am honored to share that my poem “In Like a Lion” has been included in the Oregon Poetry Association 2020 Anthology of Pandemic Poems. This is a stunning collection of poetry written by Oregon poets as witness to these times. It is a document that will have both significant historical value regarding the event itself and the writers in this place who have shared their poetic response to it.
I urge you to consider purchasing a copy of this anthology either through Submittable or Wild Apricot. All the proceeds will go to continued funding for the Oregon Poetry Association. If you love poets, or if you just want a record of this year told through the words of Oregon State poets, I encourage you to buy a copy.
In so many ways my thoughts of this year will probably not be completely known until more time has passed. It has been such a difficult time for so many, especially to those who have lost people to Covid-19. I have been privileged to have a warm home to live in, food to eat, health care. I have had the privilege to reflect during this time, to think about how I would like to contribute to the world in a way that helps those less able to have the basic needs of life. And frankly, I have no desire to return to “Normal”, for it was with the slowing down, the staying put, that helped me see how much happiness could be found in my own home, my small block, my changing neighborhood. There have been things I have missed, like live music, poetry readings, coffee shops, going to dinner with friends, and I look forward to doing them again. But I have changed, and these days I wonder what I will find when I re-enter the world and will I belong?
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Yours in poetry,
Carey
NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, this month’s reading will take place over Zoom. Email christopherjluna@gmail.com by no later than 3 pm on June 11 to indicate your interest in participating. In the subject line, let us know if you are “Reading” or “Just Listening.” You will receive instructions for how to join the […]
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Zoom Edition Featuring Carey Taylor June 11, 2020 — PRINTED MATTER VANCOUVER
I am so delighted to be reading for Ghost Town Poetry on June 11. This is my first zoom poetry reading, and I expect to read for 10 to 12 minutes. I hope some of you will follow the link above and join us.
Thanks again to Christopher Luna, poet and advocate of the arts for inviting me to read. And while these are unusual times I find hope that we are still able to find ways to share our words together.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Surfacing to have even an ocean’s chance of swimming in that phosphorescent glow you know is your center the one that too often slips out between your legs like silky kelp or the men you love but cannot hold onto attach yourself like a barnacle to the belly of a whale— dive deep into saltwater […]
Carey Taylor, Surfacing — DODGING THE RAIN
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Carey Taylor is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press, 2018). Her poetry has appeared in regional, national, and international publications and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Born in Bandon, Oregon, she has spent her entire life at the western edges of Oregon and Washington. She currently lives and writes from […]
Carey Taylor, Diagnosed — DODGING THE RAIN
I am honored to be included once again in this lovely journal which was born and spiritually resides in Galway, Ireland. Check them out—they publish poems from around the world and their visuals are stunning.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
I have taken the last few months off from the world for some internal reflection. The death of four people in my family in 12 months caused me to turn inward, to withdraw socially and surround myself with only my greatest loves: husband, family, books, poetry, home, open spaces, neighborhood walks, and yes, I will admit, binge watching High Fidelity and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Thank you Rob and Midge for making me laugh.
And now it is Spring and out my writing window I see yellow daffodils, orange pansies and purple hellebore. The 70 year-old camellia is laden in the softest of pink blooms and the neighbor’s cherry trees are ready to pop.
And for those of you who have followed my “car wash” photos, last week I took my car to get washed and began taking pictures for the 2020 series.
I submitted five new poems (the first submission in almost a year) and heard yesterday a journal in Galway, Ireland called Dodging the Rain will publish them in May and June.
By allowing myself permission to withdraw from the world for awhile, to grieve and acknowledge the losses, the color bursting before me is calling my name to rejoin the ranks.
Or it could have been the Prozac. Either way, I am doing just fine.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
I stand at the threshold
where one thing
becomes another.
I choose sky.
Water.
Sitka spruce.
Return of
snowy plover.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Do not let fear be
the center of your life,
or busyness a substitute
for living.
The space between
love and loss —
a word, a look, a
phone turned off.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
In your living body
of shadow and light
open the door.
Climb
to your own
beacon.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Yours in poetry,
Carey
The Olympia Poetry Network is doing great things in the South Sound and this event is evidence of the passion and value they place on the poets who inhabit Washington State. I highly recommend attending this event if you have the opportunity.
The Olympia Poetry Network is proud to host “LaureateFest 2019” on Sept. 21st at Saint Martin’s University’s Norman Worthington Conference Center in Lacey Washington.
A celebration of all things poetic, the panel discussion with the Poets Laureate will explore what poetry is, what it has been, and where it might be headed; what it means to be a Poet Laureate and a poet in today’s world; and will include comparisons and contrasts of individual poets’ processes of creation. In the evening, the poets will read for 15 minutes apiece from their original works. The Laureates will be available after the readings to sell and sign books. Both these events are free, and the public is encouraged to attend. The following day, a workshop facilitated by Washington state’s 3rd Poet Laureate, Elizabeth Austen, on titling poems will be held in downtown Olympia from 11:00 am until 1:00pm. More details on the flyer.
Sponsored by Saint Martin’s University, Humanities Washington, ArtsWA, Panorama Retirement, Denali Walden Massage and graphic designer Debi Bodett, LaureateFest includes an afternoon Panel Discussion and evening readings by all five past and current Poets Laureate of the State of Washington, with an introduction and poem by the City of Olympia’s Poet Laureate, Sady Sparks.
Thanks to writer and Olympia Poetry Network Board Member Patrick Dixon for passing this along.
Yours in Poetry,
Carey
Reading this Thursday! Come on down if you can. I will be reading with other fine poets from Cirque and celebrating Tim Sherry’s new book HOLY GHOST TOWN that has just been published with Cirque.
If you like poetry, poets and after poetry cocktails, please join us!
Yours in poetry,
Carey
I am honored to have my poem “Postcard” included in Snapdragon – A Journal of Art and Healing. This is is a lovely online journal that publishes work quarterly with “the goal of providing a platform and build a community among established and emerging poets, writers and artists, who find art to be a catalyst for self-discovery.”
This poem began in Paris, took a jaunt to Ireland and Australia, and found its permanent home in America. How poems come about is as interesting to me as actually writing them, and so if you are a believer that art heals and would like to support their mission, please consider subscribing to this fine publication. My poem is in the Summer 2019 Issue – 5.2.
Here is a teaser though. The poem begins here, where I am standing.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
A big thank you to writer and artist J.I. Kleinberg for writing a review of my book of poetry The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press 2018), in the most recent volume of Cirque Journal – Vol. 10. No. 1. You can check the complete review by going to the Cirque link above.
Reviews are scary things. Having your work judged by another takes a certain amount of armor. Putting yourself out there is a bit like being back in Junior High and wondering if you are going to be asked to sit at the “cool kids” table.
With that said, Judy was kind and gave me one of the biggest compliments I could have craved. As many of you know, who follow this blog, my last blog post was called Return Flight and I wrote about flying home to my beloved Pacific Northwest. Kleinberg says my poems are painterly and cinematic, that they are crafted with care and precision, all of which I appreciate. But what I especially appreciate is that she “got” my poems are rooted in most profoundly, place and anchored in the towns of Oregon and Washington.
I hope in some small way my writing can be a witness to how place has the ability to nurture and shape us. I am a fourth generation Oregonian. My family stories are rooted west of the Cascade Mountain Range in both these States and I believe like William Stegner that no place is a place until things that have happened in it are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends or monuments. And though not all the poems in this collection are about place, I appreciate that Kleinberg felt its presence important to note.
Here is a poem from this collection that began in a small fishing town on the Southern Oregon Coast and a picture of me about the time I was in fact hanging off these small town docks.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
No matter the journey. No matter other roads taken. No matter you misplaced the map of your life behind a wheel of grief. No matter you took a multitude of detours.
Because as you look out the plane window, you understand the agency of this place. How it has been etched in your mind over decades of slow accrual through streams you have fished, forests you have hiked, mountains you have climbed, lakes you have swam in, oceans you have sailed.
And how like its great river that flows to the sea, it also flows through you, and you call it by name—home.
Yours in poetry,
Carey
Carey Taylor 