If Night Is Falling - Softcover

Taylor, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0978633563 ISBN 13: 9780978633561

Publisher: The Bitter Oleander Press, 2012

Synopsis

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. "For some thirty years, John Taylor has been diving as a critic into the torrents of modern European poetry; that is, into the different national literatures which, in addition, have accepted as their own kin some of the best American poetic voices, such as those of Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, or Wallace Stevens. John Taylor is very familiar with the rich aquatic life of these European rivers; in fact, he is one of the best-informed connoisseurs of what is going on in continental poetry, with all its lively diversity. But his critical books, which show his attentive, empathic reading of work written by others in the various hearts of European poetry—France or Germany, Italy or Serbia, Greece or Slovenia, or the more northern countries—are not the topic of this introduction. This introduction is about his own poetic prose, which relates his early childhood in the American Midwest. Yet in their stylistic techniques and symbolic depths, his writings indeed subtly reflect certain kinds of European poetics."—Veno Taufer

About this title

About the Author:

Originally from Des Moines, John Taylor left the United States in 1975, studied in Germany, spent a year in Greece, then settled in France, where he still lives. His stories, short prose, and poems have been translated into French, Greek, Italian, Slovene, Polish, Ukrainian, and Dutch. As a critic specialized in contemporary European literature, he is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, the Antioch Review (in which he writes the "Poetry Today" column), the Michigan Quarterly Review, and other periodicals. A generous selection of his essays was published by Transaction in 2004 as Paths to Contemporary French Literature, followed by a second volume in 2007 and a third volume in 2011. Another collection of essays, Into the Heart of European Poetry (Transaction), appeared in 2008. For his translations of French and Modern Greek authors, he has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sonia Raiziss Giop Charitable Foundation. The Bitter Oleander Press has recently published, in a single volume, Taylor's translations of three books of poetry by Jacques Dupin, OF FLIES AND MONKEYS (including Mothers and Hazel Tree).

Review:

"A touch of the world's cultures gives a unique way of seeing the world. If Night is Falling is a collection of poetry from John Taylor who takes his study of contemporary European literature and applies his American roots to form a unique blend of poetry. If Night is Falling is a must for modern poetry collections."--Midwest Book Review

"International writer / translator [John] Taylor was born in America and has lived in France since 1977, yet these poems arrived to him daily, refreshing memory of growing up in Des Moines in the 1950's, beautifully unadorned as if they were our own memories."--Grace Cavalieri, Washington Independent Review of Books, Summer 2012

About this edition

• Publisher: The Bitter Oleander Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0978633563
• ISBN 13: 9780978633561
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96