Outside the Frame Is a Joy to Read | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center

Outside the Frame Is a Joy to Read

Ronnie Hess on Marilyn L. Taylor's newest poetry collection Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems:

When people think of formalist poets in Wisconsin, Marilyn Taylor immediately comes to mind. The former Wisconsin poet laureate (2009-2010), Milwaukee poet laureate (2004-5) and, longtime UW-Milwaukee Adjunct Professor for the Honors College, is the author of eight collections of poetry, many of them partial to verse, meter, and rhyme. Don’t let that discourage you, or even fool you into thinking the poems are humorous or lightweight, stuffy or inaccessible. They’re anything but. These are expertly crafted poems that show you how it’s done, so well in fact that you can miss the formalism in a live reading. What you surely take from Taylor’s poems are alternately keen, spirited, or touching observations on the world we live in and through, poems that guide us as we move forward. Her most recent book, Outside the Frame (Kelsay Books, 2021), is a joy to read, several times over. Buy this book!


To learn more about Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems visit mltpoet.org


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Wisconsin Poet Marilyn L. Taylor

Marilyn L. Taylor, Ph.D., is a former Poet Laureate of the state of Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee. She taught poetry for the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for fifteen years, and is the author of eight poetry collections. Taylor’s poems and essays have also appeared in Poetry, Able Muse, Measure, Light, Raintown Review, and Rhino, among many other well-known journals and anthologies. She was awarded the Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for verse in forms, and has been a finalist for the X.J. Kennedy Parody Contest, the Howard Nemerov Sonnet award, and the 2017 Lascaux Review prize. She teaches regularly at Lawrence University’s Bjorklunden Seminar Center and elsewhere, and serves as a Contributing Editor for two poetry journals (Verse-Virtual and Third Wednesday). Her newest book, titled Outside the Frame: New and Selected Poems, was published by Kelsay Books in December, 2021... Read More

About the Author

Poet Ronnie Hess in tortoiseshell glasses

Ronnie Hess is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent, Tripping the Light Ekphrastic (Kelsay Books, 2022) and two culinary travel guides (Ginkgo Press). Another book of poems, Eggphrasis, is forthcoming in December. She lives in Madison.

Photo by Thomas Garnhart


August 2022

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