Some Aid to Navigation

Carey Taylor's work is steeped in the wild reaches of the Northwest coast-crow-dark forests, seaweed tang of low tide, the boom of Pacific surf. Like lush kelp ribbon anchored on jagged rocks, beneath these tender memories lies tumult and loss. In the beginning/ we knew nothing / of charred ground. These poems braid a layered journey in finding new bearings that will meld our/ fractured parts into some kind of beauty. -Gina Hietpas, author of Terrain- Finalist for Washington State Book Awards

In Carey Taylor's Some Aid to Navigation we encounter not only the life of the poet, the sand and salt and waves that first touched that life, but through Taylor's masterfully lyrical narratives we get some aid to navigating our own lives, our own childhoods and losses. Taylor is a poet of both beauty and hardship and those two tides often ebb and flow in a single poem. This is a book of place and personhood, of family and nature, a book you will pick up over and over again.-Matthew Dickman, author of Husbandry

Carey Taylor was born in Bandon, Oregon, shortly after her parents moved into their first home, next door to the Port Orford Lifeboat Station. She grew up following her father's Coast Guard career on the Oregon and Washington coasts, and had the good fortune to live at Point Wilson Lighthouse, Burrows Island Lighthouse, and Cape Arago Lighthouse as a child.Some of her first memories are her view of the Garibaldi Boat House from her bedroom window at the Tillamook Coast Guard Station, helicopters landing in her front yard, and the persistent background wail of a foghorn. Her love of this western edge of the world has been an integral part of her identity and one of her greatest writing muses.Carey is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press). She is the winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and runner-up for the Concrete Wolf Louis Poetry Book Award. She has been published in the United States, Ireland, and England. She has a Master's Degree in School Counseling from Pacific Lutheran University. Carey lives in Portland, Oregon. You can visit her website careyleetaylor.com.