Book Recommendation: DOWN THIS CROOKED ROAD: Modern Poetry From the Road Less Traveled (Edited by RD Armstrong & William Taylor Jr) Lummox Press, San Pedro, 2009 (153 pages)

INTRODUCTION

I recently came across this old book  & found it interesting and entertaining to read and discovered some new poets working from the streets. In his Introduction writer and editor William Taylor Jr. says he was approached by Lummox guru RD Armstrong and was invited to solicit work from a handful of his favourite poets with the possibility of creating a book. It didn’t take Taylor long to draw up a list of writers and he says that they are not from any particular region or school of poetry:

“What connects these writers in my mind is obviously not location, or even style of writing, but more a spirit that I feel shines through in the work of all involved. All the poetry contained here is accessible without being mundane, well crafted without being academic…Poetry for people who might not realise they like poetry.

“It is my belief that your average reader can pick up this volume, open it to any page, read a bit, and think: This makes sense to me. This is a fellow human sharing their vision of what it is to exist, and it inspires me. Or, it could well be they’ll think something more along the lines of: This is some cool ass shit! That works too.”

The title poem ‘Down This Crooked Road’ is taken from Christopher Cunningham’s poem of the same name. It speaks of the uncertainty and daring of striking out on the road. The poem concludes:

we

are almost ill-prepared

but

there

is madness

and daring

in our eyes

as

we cut ties

and

stare back

at

the abyss,

laughing.

The collection includes seven poets:

Poet	pages
M.K. Chavez	11-28
Christopher Cunningham	29-48
Miles J. Bell	49-70
William Taylor Jr.	71-96
Christopher Robin	97-116
Father Luke	117-133
Hosho McCreesh	134-151
Bios	152-153

In this short summary of the book I will provide a brief overview of each poet’s work and will provide some links to their latest work, if available.

M.K. CHAVEZ

Chavez is the only female poet in the collection. As it says in her bio, she “writes about the beauty that can be found in ugliness.” ‘Ode to Methamphetamine’ is her strongest poem but ‘Mission Street Love Story’ and ‘Everything that I needed to Know about Writing I Learned from Being a Stripper’ are also highly impressive.

Her latest book Mothermorphosis (Nomadic Press, 2016) can be purchased here: http://www.nomadicpress.org/store/mothermorphosis

CHRISTOPHER CUNNINGHAM

Cunningham is a highly observational poet who compresses everyday experiences to often make metaphorical comments on life. The title poem ‘down this crooked road’, ‘GO’ and ‘bending, but not the other’ are some good examples. His writing is pared down, exceedingly clear and excellently conceived.

Find an old post on NYQ Poets: http://poets.nyq.org/poet/christophercunningham

A 2007 interview with Cunningham on Poet Hound: http://poethound.blogspot.com.au/2008/04/interview-with-christopher-cunningham.html

Blog: Upright Against the Savage Heavens 2006-2012: http://savageheavens.blogspot.com.au/

MILES J. BELL

Bell is an English writer and is probably best known for his 11 page poem ‘Icarus Rex’ which appears in this collection.

Some of the other poems represent threshold experiences which prompt the speaker to make a realisation, such as, the need to move beyond the expected & to surprise yourself, that feelings like pain and love are fleeting and “will eventually fade to shadow” and the like.

Find some of Bell’s work online:

http://www.wordriot.org/template.php?ID=801

http://www.alittlepoetry.com/vv05mbell.html

http://www.killpoet.com/issue_3/articles/21.html

Interviewed by Sean Kilpatrick in 2006: http://anorexicchlorinesextoymuseum.blogspot.de/2006/08/interview-with-miles-j-bell.html

WILLIAM TAYLOR JR.

Taylor who lives in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco, is the best known poet in the collection. In these poems he wanders through the local bars and cafes in the search of  sad woman and material for his writing. My favourites include ‘Slow’, ‘The Strangest’, and in particular, ‘It is Enough’. The poems are highly observational and chronicle the passing of time, in which Taylor shapes his experience to make some subtle but profound metaphysical statements about life.

His latest book To Break the Heart of the Sun (Words Dance Publishing, 2016) can be bought here: http://wordsdance.com/to-break-the-heart-of-the-sun-by-william-taylor-jr/

Follow William Taylor Jr.’s latest  writing on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/William-Taylor-Jr-134877363275335/

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

Robin brings to us the world of food stamps, of women with kids with foetal alcohol syndrome, of bathrooms which haven’t been cleaned for six years. He describes in blunt detail those who live at the bottom of the food chain. His best poems include the brilliant ‘Freaky Mumbler’s Manifesto’, ‘Infinite Joy In Spite Of’ and ‘Slingshot’.

Robin is a labourer from Santa Cruz, California. He has published  three chapbooks and is editor of Zen Baby zine, a self described “pseudo-literary train-wreck in print form since 2000.”

Find the zine here: http://www.christopherrobinzenbaby.com/415033576

FATHER LUKE

Father Luke Miljevich from his 2009 bio describes himself as a person who “waits with a woman he loves for a perfect world.” He writes about the pain and loneliness of living on the fourth floor of an old hotel in an up-beat, often humorous way.  His best poem is ‘With A Seagull For Company’ about the death of  Little Bob, his aquarium crab.

Find Father Luke on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Father.Luke.Miljevich/

HOSHO McCREESH

In this collection McCreesh writes grand philosophical poems about the inevitability of death, the lack of purpose, our loss of innocence, the snuffing out of the light & the approaching darkness. He likes using long-winded titles which emerge into the poem, such as, ‘You Never Want To Say That/ We Owe It To Ourselves/ To Be Happy As We Can Possibly Be/ For All The Many & Nefarious Ways It’ll Be/ Taken Out of Context, Be Co-Opted/ By The Greedy., The Self-Important, The Gluttonous, & Idiotic & Insatiable…’ and ‘As Madness Abounds, As Brutality Trumpets & A Cold, Hard World Gets Colder, Harder, & The Death Of All That Might Save Us Increases…’

Hosho McCreesh hails from the American Southwest and more information about his writing can be found at his official page for his books of poetry: http://www.hoshomccreesh.com/poetry/

See also: www.nyqpoets.ner/poet/hoshomccreesh

For more information about purchasing Down This Crooked Road contact Lummox Press: http://www.lummoxpress.com/lc/

Featuring William Taylor Jr

The Next Thing

At this point I can't begin

to guess what might be

left of me.

Sometimes you lose the rhythm of things,

the music goes funny

and the sky forgets your name.

I just know the demons

aren't going anywhere anytime soon,

so  I drink with them on Sunday afternoons,

trying to negotiate some kind of

workable deal,

while down in the alley

a withered woman begs quarters

from confused tourists.

She's having a bad time of it

as the girls stand outside the nudie bars,

half naked and smoking,

as beautiful and as mean

as the sun.

I watch them as the pretty waitress

brings my medicine

and think about how I'll

have to go back to work tomorrow,

hungover

and with little sleep,

and how the waitress

and the girls outside the clubs

one day won't be pretty,

or even alive,

and I'm feeling kind of sad for everything

and how there's nothing to be done

for any of it,

as we all go about our business,

waiting for the next thing

to break.

What the Fear Tells Me

The great  animal fear of the world

is what stays with us,

is what our bones are made of.

Love burns off in the sun,

strength gives way,

anything you can name

slips through your shaking hands.

The fear sleeps, but it's never far

from the surface of things.

Those who say otherwise

are liars and always running.

God's an empty bottle

in the face of it,

whatever you've constructed

to keep it at bay

gives like splintered wood.

It's a fine afternoon;

there's wine and sunlight,

pretty girls beneath it.

But the fear is there in every shadow.

I drink beer to try and keep it quiet,

offer these words

as a kind of appeasement,

but it's in me like a heart.

I dearly want to call

and tell you this,

because I think you'd

understand,

but the fear tells me

you won't pick up,

and it's probably right;

just like when says

I should have listened to my father,

and how I'll never find

a good ending

for this poem.

All That Fire

Eventually you end up

wherever it is

that trouble leaves you,

caught like a wounded thing

between all the days behind you

and those still to come

with nothing much

to say for yourself.

But that girl,

she really knew

how to burn.

The thought of her caught

forever in those flames

she wore like skin,

and laughing

the way she did,

its the kind of beauty

that leaves scars

in secret places;

the kind of beauty that breaks you

in ways you didn't know

you could break.

And while even people like yourself

eventually do their best

to forget and move on,

her ghost still burns

in dreams and the spaces

between things,

and the world is just the ash.

William Taylor Jr.

940 Post St. # 1

San Francisco,  CA  94109

bardamu67@sbcglobal.net

William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. His work has been published widely in journals across the globe, including The New York Quarterly, The Chiron Review, and Poesy. An Age of Monsters, his first book of fiction, was published by Epic Rites Press in 2011. The Blood of a Tourist (Sunnyoutside, 2014) is his latest collection of poetry. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Acker Award.

William Taylor Jr. BROKEN WHEN WE GOT HERE. Epic Rites Press, Sherwood Park, Alberta, 2013 (50 pages).

This is William Taylor Jr’s third collection of poetry and his first published by Canada’s Epic Rites Press. The slim volume consists of forty poems some of which have previously appeared in small press publications such as Red Fez, Tree Killer Ink, Rusty Truck, Alternative Reel and others. This is a tight and highly unified collection of emotionally mature and deeply poignant poems.

Like Taylor’s earlier work, the poems are typically first person, confessional free verse narratives. His tone is highly conversational, and in several of these poems, we walk beside the speaker as he wanders around the back streets and cafes and bars, usually in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco where Taylor lives. The poet’s solitary meanderings often provoke deep meditations on the nature of existence and on his search for meaning- on what lies ‘at the core of things’.

The title of the book Broken When We Got Here suggests to the reader that the world was already stuffed up before Taylor and his generation arrived. Taylor is not trying to fix anything, he is simply trying to reflect on what he can learn from his experiences, to help him to continue on, despite the pervading stench of loneliness, sadness and despair he sees in the world.

The cover artwork is by Julie Sparenberg and features a close-up of dilapidated door, presumably the door leading to Taylor’s “bare little room.” The title poem interestingly appears on the back cover of the book and provides the reader with a sniff of what to expect in the collection. The poet expresses a sense of astonishment that his life has herded him “like a sad animal/ to a cattle car/ with little protest” to a room “with no space to move” and which opens to a world he does not “want to go”.

Taylor cleverly uses second person in the poem (and several others) to allow his readers to step into his world to enable them to empathize with his suffering and his general feelings of helplessness and revolt:  

BROKEN WHEN WE GOT HERE

And you find yourself in this place

this bare little room

with no space to move

and a single door

leading somewhere you don’t want to go.

The days and the years have pushed

and prodded you here

like a sad animal

to a cattle car

with little protest.

It happened so suddenly,

you always imagined yourself

too clever

for such a fate.

But now you are here

and the ceiling looms

with no time left.

It seems rather late

to be thinking of escape,

but there must be a way.

(reprinted with the permission of the publisher)

In this poem, Taylor makes the realisation that he is a victim of the system but he openly admits he has been complicit in the chipping away of his own freedom. He allows us a glimmer of hope in the last line of the poem, with his aside that “there must be a way” to escape the restrictions of our fate which has surprisingly snuck up to us over time. The tone is uncertain and Taylor clearly has no answers. As you read further into the collection, many of the poems are about Taylor emerging from the confines of his room to actively seek out in his community the subtle shades of light and beauty which will enrich and transform his life.

In ‘Saturday Night, Small Apartment in the Tenderloin’ Taylor suggests that despite our very best efforts, we cannot escape from what politicians and other social engineers have designed for us. They will “cast us out/ of any soft place/ we’ve found to hide.” In ‘If We Let Them’, perhaps the most politically charged poem in the collection, he defiantly states that, “Those who own the world” will “do their best to convince us/ there is no magic // left in the world.” He appeals to the reader that this snuffing out of our personal freedoms by the powers-that-be must not be tolerated and needs to be challenged, “There is so little time to discover what it is/ to be alive/ if we let them.”

All Taylor, or most of us really wants, is a slice of freedom where we are allowed the space to think deeply about why we are here and for what purpose. This search for meaning for Taylor is ongoing and highly improvisational and full of false leads and agonising self doubts. In ‘The Thing That Hurts Most’, for example, he expresses a paradoxical desire to hold “on to everything” while simultaneously wanting “to dissolve the anchors and the chains” of his being.

Taylor’s intention in putting together Broken When We Got Here is perhaps made explicit in the opening and concluding poems of the collection. In ‘When We Try And Do Something Beautiful’, as in the crafting of his poetry, he compares it to “holding a fading sparkler”… “on an endless/ ocean of dark” knowing the euphoria of the experience, “won’t last/ very long.”

In the last poem ‘The Only Word’, Taylor writes that “even now the sadness/ can be pretty” and in a transcendental moment, as the sun sinks behind “an old grey building”, he feels redeemed, rewarded for his persistence to hang on: “in an instant life and everything/ feels suddenly like it’s been/ worth it all along and you can/ taste the moment/ on your tongue like candy.” The moment is fleeting for Taylor but it gives him, and hopefully his readers, the strength to carry on.

A central motif in the collection which is explicitly stated in ‘That Precious Dream of Something’ is that existence is a mixture of joy and despair and despite the terror of the void we “still... continue/ spellbound// by that precious/ dream/ of something/ beyond.”

In ‘Alive In The Midst Of It’, Taylor furthers this stoical optimism. On a lazy Sunday afternoon he thinks about his wife and cat as she stares out a window onto the street, “we suffer through so much/ to arrive at these fleeting moments/ of quiet joy// understanding/ in spite of everything. It’s a fair enough/ arrangement/ after all.”

In the more powerful poem ‘Souvenirs’ Taylor states that he is unsure whether “if it be joy or sorrow/ that waits/ at the core of things”. He only knows “that life is sometimes gentle/ in-between the meaner times.” The poem profoundly concludes:

there is horror to be sure,

beyond imagining,

but the sunlight never ceases to be glorious

and has infinite stories to tell.

In this vast and terrible darkness there are

flashes of beauty and grace.

If nothing else, they will make

splendid souvenirs

to carry with us back home

to the void.

Taylor’s world appears to be coloured by a pervading sense of sadness and a deep inner loneliness- that “pure diamond” which “waits at the core of all things” (‘Even In Our Dreams’). Yet despite the despair of having to stare down the darkness of “the void,” it is the “unexpected magic” of light and music in our lives which enables him to continue.

In ‘And Now Awake’ the speaker awakens after a ‘long night’ of dreaming of death. He is temporarily disturbed but his mood lifts as he observes his cat asleep in the other room. Reminiscent of the English poet Philip Larkin, he is mesmerized and transformed by the play of light across the sky: “And through the open window/ the San Francisco sky, such a glorious/ shade of grey!”

Similarly, in ‘Tiny Moments of Light’ the speaker enters a bar full of old men on a Wednesday afternoon and joyfully watches a young woman dancing to jukebox songs.  She dances “with a joy that proves/ some kind of beauty/ still exists/ in spite of everything.” The old men watch her and gratefully smile “thankful for unexpected magic// and tiny/ moments of light.”

This vision of transcendental magic is tempered with more sophisticated and complex images as in ‘The Fish Truck’ where the poet watches a truck transfer “fish of many sizes/ and colors” into roadside buckets. For a brief moment he understands his life and that of his fellow human beings with clarity, compassion and common sense: “I stand and watch/ and think,// this is how it is/ with all of us.// And the feeling/ is not exactly sorrow,// but more an acknowledgement/ of ordinary suffering, a general helplessness/ and a knowing there is nothing/ else to do but continue/ on my way// to wherever it is/ I think I am going.”

In Broken When We Got Here Taylor presents an essentially humanist message. In ‘As Magic As Anything’ he writes, “Jesus is not here/ to save you// anymore/ than the bartenders/ or the politicians,// any more than/ the drug peddlers/ or the girls in magazines.” In the key poem ‘As Magic As Anything’ Taylor asks us “to look to the indifferent sky” and to take his hand to embrace the “terrible freedom” given to us: “ it’s as magic as anything,/ as empty and as beautiful.” In one of the last poems in the collection, ‘Something Other Than Death', the speaker makes the realization that he is being killed "bit by bit" by a system which offers him little choice. The trick, he concludes, is “to convince ourselves// we are working towards/ something other than death”, to make us feel “that our time has not been/ wasted.”

For Taylor, singing is a spontaneous outpouring of the soul. He believes that most of us are too afraid to sing, too afraid to express our underlying emotions and opinions because we are trapped within this world which has been largely manufactured for us. Music as a symbol of creativity and spontaneous joy often appears in his work.

In ‘As If Life Were Never Born’ Taylor expresses a disquieting sadness as he wanders through the hard streets of San Francisco, “Every face I meet, looking/ as if life were never born;// the music of existence/ everywhere// and no singing!” In contrast, in ‘Cassette Tapes’, Taylor recalls an iconic incident from his youth in Bakersfield, California in which he sits in his car with a friend and they drink and sing together. The poem ends on a fatalistic but ironically defiant note: “we already knew that life/ wouldn’t hold/ much else/ for us than this/ and that just made us sing/ all the more.”

In ‘The Music In It’ the motif of music is further explored. The speaker openly admits that “it’s not been / much of a day” and “all grand things remain/ undone” but he has found a new café and has sat and observed people throughout the day. After a few pints he feels less angry and more at peace. He concludes: “The sky is soft/ and hints of rain; // it feels good to breathe it/ in and out. // Maybe there’s a poem here, after all.//It’s not been much of a day,/ but it’s good to find the music in it.”

More compelling is the poem ‘Even In This’ in which Taylor expresses a weary disillusionment and frustration  not only in his life but in the "futile gesture" of writing poetry "in the name of beauty."  Taylor concludes optimistically, that deep inside of him, within us, “there’s still a music/ worth hearing- even is this”- his poem- & we  need to make the effort to consciously seek it out.

EVEN IN THIS

For RAY MCLAUGHLIN

The minutes are heavy things

sent to crush us with their weight.

The hours are a thick dark water

born to pull us down.

The days are frustratingly

useless, one much like another

with no end in sight.

We strain to hear the music

but can’t get our heads,

our hands or our hearts

around it.

The city made of concrete and

the people haunt it like ghosts.

Whatever love we’ve salvaged

feels forced and unreal,

like something sold to us,

like something we were told to buy.

We wonder if victory can exist

in the face of this;

yet even now

a part of me believes

in the nobility

of every futile gesture

made in the name of beauty.

Even now a part of me believes

that somewhere deep

within the belly of this

there’s still a music

worth hearing,

a music

even in this.

(reprinted with the permission of the publisher)

In Summary

This is a slim book full of condensed wisdom. Taylor’s San Francisco wanderings have provided the catalyst for his considered contemporary humanist take on existence. The poems are acutely observational laments and emerge as a practical response to his street experiences rather than being overtly theoretical or didactic in scope. In my well- thumbed copy of Broken When We Got Here, the poems characteristically tread the fine line between the crushing weight of despair and a genuine expression of joy & renewal . Taylor infers that “in spite of everything” we need to give ourselves completely to the moment, to find “fleeting moments of quiet joy” within the “terrible freedom” handed to us. Ironically, Taylor in the end, understands that in our attempt to make sense of it all, there is no need "to soil it with our words."

BUY THE BOOK HERE for  only $5 on special - IT'S A BLOODY BARGAIN!: http://www.treekillerink.com/product/broken_when_we_got_here

BOOK REVIEW/ INTERVIEW: William Taylor Jr. AN AGE OF MONSTERS: Fictions, Partial Truths and a Half Remembered Dream. Epic Rites Press, Sherwood Park, Alberta, 2011 (184 pages)

This is Tenderloin resident William Taylor Jr.’s first book of short stories. The collection consists of fifteen stories written from a wide variety of perspectives and subject matter. Taylor writes with extraordinary clarity and quickly draws the reader into his quirky world. The stories are carefully crafted but have a spontaneous, unpredictable feel to them.

The title An Age of Monsters: Fictions, Partial Truths and a Half Remembered Dream is an obvious acknowledgement that this is a work of fiction despite being inspired by Taylor's personal and artistic life. The ‘half remembered dream’ is derived from the story 'My Hemingway Dream’ in which the narrator, presumably Taylor, explains a dream in which he shares a drink with the great writer after a big punch up.

Some of the more interesting stories are the longer narratives which reveal how people react in times of crisis. Taylor is particularly effective at describing conflict, when emotions fray and relationships fuck up. In ‘Tuesday Morning at the Sad Motel’ Taylor contrasts the easy going and existential Ben with the messed up and self indulgent Greta to explore the sadness inherent in their love. In ‘The Legend of Eddie and Lola’ he traces with a wonderful sense of dramatic irony the desperation of a couple’s deluded desire to become famous. ‘The Last Time I saw Greta’ the narrator Ben travels to Hollywood to visit a childhood friend who is living with a lesbian. In all these stories, fuses blow and hell breaks out. Taylor describes this descent from reason in an exhilarating and highly entertaining way. His use of dialogue is sparse but always highly credible in helping to reveal the often hidden, volatile side of people.

Also fascinating are Taylor’s satirical portraits of the small press poetry community as he scathingly relates in ‘Lives of the Poets’ Parts I and II. Poets and publishers alike are depicted as a bunch of pretentious, self interested assholes.  The narrator Jeffery Robbins Jr. reels as the integrity of his work is mutilated through ‘selective editing.’

Taylor’s comfortably moves from first to third person. His male lead characters are usually laid back, passive men who stoically accept the hand dealt them. They are characteristically unemployed in their late 20s, who enjoy sitting around drinking and observing people and who are sketching the lives of the people they meet in their poetry and short stories. The females, on the other hand, are usually represented as irrational, self destructive and largely driven by impulse. They are strong and think they are in control- but  typically have ‘crazed animal eyes’ and who have a tendency of screwing up their daily lives.  

Each story is preceded by a black and white photo by San Francisco photographer Julie Michelle. The photos range from the gritty realism of America’s past to photo-shopped conceptual art. I can’t recall seeing the extensive use of photos in a book of short stories previously so it gives a unique feel to the book.

William Taylor Jr. is a clever, natural born story teller who loves to describe people and relationships, especially when things don’t go according to plan. He writes with great humour and humanity and is unafraid to experiment with form or content. These stories about ordinary people are narrated in a simple, conversational style and express an honest truth which we would most certainly heed if we were predominately rational creatures.

INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM  TAYLOR  JR: 12 October 2011

Q1: You have been publishing poetry for over fifteen years but you appear to have only published a handful of stories prior to your first collection of short stories An Age of Monsters. The earliest short story I found of yours is ‘The Wallet’ published in Laura Hird’s SHOWCASE in 2005. http://www.laurahird.com/showcase/williamtaylorjr2.html How long have you been writing short stories and when did it click that you could assemble a collection?

A1: I’ve actually been writing stories just as long as I’ve been writing poems, if not longer. I started submitting my poetry first, and had some success with it, so I tended to spend more time on the poems.  I continued to write stories and publish them from time to time, but they come much slower than the poems, and it’s taken me some time to find a consistent voice in my prose.

Q2: You seamlessly appear to move from poetry to prose in your writing. What difficulties have you experienced in the transition between the two mediums? What are some of the fundamental goals you strive for in your prose writing?

 A: I think perhaps because I write so much poetry, I tend to write my stories like I write my poems, line by line, wanting every line to be as perfect as I know how to make it, so the stories can be kind of slow going for me.  I’m not a fast writer.  I try to have a certain rhythm in the language of my stories, as in my poems, so they usually go through a lot of editing.

When I write a story my goal is to do my best to convey whatever “truth” of feeling that came to me when I decided to write it.  It’s important for me for the characters and dialogue be as honest as possible, trying to avoid sacrificing truth for a plot point.

Q3: In researching for this interview some of your favourite prose writers include Brautigan, Bukowski, Salinger and Carver. Can you nominate some others, both past & present, you look up to and why?

 A: Definitely all of those you’ve mentioned.  The others I would have to list would be William Saroyan, Nelson Algren, Luis Ferdinand Celine, Hemingway, and more recently Cormac McCarthy and Roberto Bolano.

This is obviously a varied group, but maybe what links them in my mind is that they’re all great stylists, and plot is often less important than getting across some kind of feeling or truth.  They’re all writers that can blow you away with a perfect sentence or passage, just with the poetry of the language.  I don’t care what a story is about; I can read a novel about a guy sitting in a chair staring at a wall if it’s written in a way that gives me some insight into the human condition.  I guess you could say there a lot of poetry in the prose of these writers, and a lot of dark humor.

Q4: The reference to the title of your book comes from the tragic-comic short story ‘An Age of Monsters.’ The full title of your collection is a long one: An Age of Monsters: Fictions. Partial Truths and a Half Remembered Dream. Can you elaborate on why you chose this title?  

A: In the context of the stories, the Age of Monsters is the age of man; man being a monster of sorts, out of tune with the natural world.  The subtitle just describes the variety of pieces in the collection; some are completely fictional, while others are fairly autobiographical.  And there’s an actual dream I had about Ernest Hemingway.

Q5: The Tenderloin area of SF is similar to other Western dives such as East Vancouver and the King’s Cross area of Sydney which I am more familiar with. Why the continued fascination with the low-life?

A: My writing, both poetry and prose, is strongly influenced by my surroundings.  I currently live on the edge of the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco and so a lot of the stories in the collection are born of the people and places I encounter there.  I don’t really see it as the “low-life”, exactly, more just people existing on the fringes of the society, without a lot of luck or money, getting by as best they can.  It’s just day to day life.

Q6: Can you outline your involvement with Epic Rites Press. How did you first become familiar with the publisher and how were they to deal with in the processes leading up to the publication of An Age of Monsters?

A: Epic Rites had been publishing my poetry in their magazine, Tree Killer Ink, and featuring my work in various projects.  At some point they published the short story An Age of Monsters.  Wolf at Epic Rites really liked the piece, and at some point we decided I had enough stories that worked well together for a collection.  We’ve been working together as far as editing the pieces, and San Francisco photographer Julie Michelle has provided images for the title pages of each story, which really has given the book a unique feel.

Q7: What’s next for you?

A: I’ve got another book of poems in the early stages of being born, and hopefully I’ll be working on a few other projects with Julie Michelle.  I might even consider one day writing something that will make me some money.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

Thank you!

William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. His poems and stories have been widely published in the independent press in publications including Poesy, The Chiron Review and The New York Quarterly.  He is the author of the poetry collections Words for Songs Never Written (Centennial Press 2007) and The Hunger Season (Sunnyoutside, 2009).  An Age of Monsters is his first collection of prose.  His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize

 Buy Taylor’s An Age of Monsters here:

http://www.epicrites.org/an-age-of-monsters.html

Check out William Taylor Jr.’s homepage for information about his books:

http://williamtaylorjr.net/

An interesting interview of Taylor about his poetry can be found here:

http://www.centennialpress.com/interview.html