Congratulations to Keith Taylor whose poems have been recognized with yet another Michigan Notable Book Award! It’s time for me to share the long interview I did with Keith in 2023 and 2024. You will learn a bit about me too.
Click here to read our conversation, “I Like to Dwell in the Obvious.”
I sat with Keith on two different occasions and asked him questions about his poems and his life–the two are hardly separable. If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of Keith’s beautiful poems, please read on.
Many of his answers were long. Of course they were! Keith loves literature and ideas and has led a very rich life so far. He also loves family, friends, Nature, and visual art. Would it be too old fashioned to suggest him as the sort of role model we need in these dark times?
And what about “boxes,” “boards,” “poles,” and “problems”? These are some of the words AI proposed when one of us said “poem” or “poems.” It also offered “posts,” “province,” “palm,” “pumps,” “about,” “pump,” “balm,” “prompts,” “paragraph,” “bones,” and “poll.” Let’s just say I did a lot of listening, re-listening, typing, and retyping. Thank goodness Keith is so compelling.
By the way, Keith and I have condensed the transcript considerably. The original was about 26,000 words long. It’s now about half that. Please let us know your reactions and questions.
Clicking around in my journal and the Internet this morning, looking at a list I have gathered of Michigan poets, and found a 2021 article from Ann Arbor Observer about poets living in and passing through Ann Arbor, which then led me to this interview between you and Keith Taylor. Thank you – the length and breadth of this discussion(s) allows so much more than the typical literary page interviews out there.
An aside: the copy of A Fine Canopy I purchased early last summer at Literati had your signature on the inside title page, and I am appreciative of that, too.
Thanks for sending word. I really appreciate your taking the time to let us know you enjoyed the interview. And of course I’m really happy to know you have found your way to a copy of A Fine Canopy. Thank goodness for bookstores.