Peter Taylor
Personal Information
Description
Peter Taylor’s poems have been published internationally in Anansesem, Anatomy & Etymology, Apercus Quarterly, Call & Response, The Caterpillar Chronicles, Contemporary Verse 2, Copaiba Literary Review, The Copperfield Review, Fade Poetry Journal, Frostwriting, The Glass Coin, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Nether, Petrichor Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Pirene’s Fountain, StepAway Magazine, and Sz, and have been anthologized in We Stand on Guard and The Best of Grain. He has published three books: Trainer, a mosaic of poems based on his father’s experience as a pilot during the Second World War, was published by The Paget Press, The Masons by the Gryphon Press, and Aphorisms by the Adela Press. Antietam, his experimental verse play on the American Civil War, won honorable mention in the 2010 War Poetry Contest in Northampton, Massachusetts. Peter Taylor lives in Aurora, Canada.
Books
Aphorisms
Trainer
TRAINER is a mosaic of poems forming the experience of pilot training between 1939-1945 in WWII, during which time Canada became one enormous airfield under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Based on the author's father's logbook as a flight training officer in WWII, TRAINER is both an historical document and a personal odyssey. TRAINER include an introductory poem by Raymond Souster called "Short Monologue with One Long Dead," addressing the author's father. DELUXE LIMITED EDITION contains a handwritten poem by the author. Under the BCATP between May 1940 and March 1945, a total of 131,553 aircrew (pilots, navigators, air bombers, wireless operators, air gunners, and flight engineers) were trained in Canada on 120 air training stations, using 7,000 aircraft, and completing more than 13,800,000 flying hours. The BCATP suffered a total of 2,108 fatalities in Canada, or an average of one death for every 6,550 flying hours. Before Dieppe, more than 1,000 airmen had already died in Canada. Of the 72,835 RCAF aircrew who completed their training and flew on operations overseas, a total of 17,101 (23%) were killed or wounded.
First Epistle to Dr. Torr
An academic satire - "A Poem in Cowardly Couplets in Three Books" - written in the vein of Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock." Hand typeset, printed, and bound on the Gryphon Press by the author in a limited hard-cover edition. BOOK THE FIRST: Argument The Prologue, the Dilemma, and the Invocation. Faithful to the Greek, the poem then hastens into the first day, before Terrible Sacrifice is due the Inhuman Monster. The City of Uslusia secretly prepares to depose Syllabic Tyranny. The City is described, wherein the Queen's decree has summoned the finest Heroes of Hellas to contest their Battle Plans before the Throne. The Sacred Hall, and the people therein to hear the Speeches. Digressios first calls for Disordered Might to siege the Horrid Den. Syrkuitos then counters that his Magic Thread will best grip the Monster's Despair. Both are opposed by Melodios Borros, who proposes to sing to endless sleep the City's Curse. The Midget, then collapsing from Will, stirs the crowd to its plight. An answer is sought of Queen Ambivalla. The Priest offers a prayer. The Answer is delivered, and the People, rejoicing in their Deliverance, press their grateful Devotions upon the ensuing Victory.
Cities Within Us
Cities Within Us offers poems that are dense and deep with language that resonates at multiple levels and often startles with its juxtapositions and verbal explosions. From the intimately personal to the dramatically confessional, Peter Taylor’s poems capture a purse-seine of discordant voices, including a piece of type, a bee, an orang-outang, Franklin, the delusional and the abused in a universe that seems both unlimited and inevitable. Images and emotions move the reader from the disappearance of arctic explorers to the razing and rebirth of the Dresden Frauenkirche to the comic innocence of a child’s visit to Mars in poems that explore the inner landscapes of imagination and reality, and the intimate capacity for joy and loss.