Marilyn L. Talyor is an author and poet, her newest book being Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems. She served as Wisconsin Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2010, as well as a Milwaukee Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2005.
ALL Review: Your website mentions that your newest book, Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems covers almost 20 years worth of poetry. Going through the process of selecting these poems, what have you learned about your work?
Marilyn Taylor: The most important (and probably the most surprising) discovery I made was realizing that I’d been writing some pretty worthy poems all along, even many years ago. To be honest, I think my earlier work has held up pretty well (with some major exceptions, of course). This could be due to the fact that I started writing poetry later in life than most people do, and I’d already acquired some important insights I didn’t have in my teens and twenties.
AR: How did you get started writing? Do you have a moment where you knew that you wanted to be a poet, or was it always just a passion for you?
MT: When I graduated from UW I became an advertising copywriter—first for the Sears Roebuck catalog, specializing in ladies undies (!)—and eventually for the Chicago Tribune, where I wrote promotional copy for six years. Eventually I got married, moved to Mlwaukee, had a child. And when that child entered first grade I decided to go to grad school at UWM to study linguistics—a field that had always fascinated me. My linguistics concentration eventually morphed into my learning all about poetic structure, and finally into writing poems myself, which people seemed to like. I taught creative writing at UWM for fifteen highly fulfilling years. So to answer your question more directly, becoming a poet came almost as a surprise to me. It sort of crept up on me and pounced.
AR: You were named Milwaukee Poet Laureate from 2004-2005 and Wisconsin Poet Laureate from 2009-2010. How have these roles influenced your writing?
MT: It came as a complete surprise to me when I was asked to interview for that appointment. When I was selected, I was thrilled, especially because I was relatively new to the poetry scene in Milwaukee, and I didn’t expect that kind of recognition. To be honest, though, my writing probably didn’t change much as a result of it.
AR: Family is obviously a rich source for your work, how does your own family respond to your work? Do you have any advice for other poets who are writing about family?
MT: My immediate family was tiny, secretive, and grumpy. At this writing, they are all deceased. My father was impossible, my sister was distant, and my mom was affectionate, but basically very sad. If they influenced my writing at all, it was to motivate additional negative poems. But I had a wonderfully supportive husband named Allen, who passed away in 2012. And a new and equally supportive second husband named Dave. Both influenced and encouraged my work enormously.
AR: What poets are you reading right now?
MT: I have recently discovered Ellen Bass, and I’m currently re-reading Marilyn Nelson, Rhina Espaillat, Mark Doty, and my true-love from the past, Thomas Hardy.
AR: Could you share a poem with us that we could print or reprint on ALL Review? If it’s a reprint, please be sure the rights have reverted to you and include the original publication information so we can provide credit.
MT: Here’s one about my late husband Allen, who was an avid gardener and a lovely guy. It was first published in Poetry (June, 1999). I retain the rights to this poem.
Poem for a 75th Birthday
to Allen Marcus Taylor, 1926 - 2012
Love of my life, it’s nearly evening
and here you still are, slow-dancing
in your garden, folding and unfolding
like an enormous grasshopper in the waning
sun. Somehow you’ve turned our rectangle
of clammy clay into Southern California,
where lilacs and morning-glories mingle
with larkspur, ladyfern and zinnia—
all of them a little drunk on thundershowers
and the broth of newly fallen flowers.
I can’t get over how the brightest blooms
seem to come reaching for your hand,
weaving their way across the loom
of your fingers, bending
toward the trellis of your body.
They sway on their skinny stems
like a gang of super-models
making fabulous displays of their dumb
and utter gratitude, as if they knew
they’d be birdseed if it weren’t for you.
And yet they haven’t got the slightest clue
about the future; they behave as if
you’ll be there for them always, as if you
were the sun itself, brilliant enough
to keep them in the pink, or gold, or green
forever. Understandable, I decide
as I look at you out there—as I lean
in your direction, absolutely satisfied
that summer afternoon is all
there is, and night will never fall.
To learn more about Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems visit mltpoet.org
