News of the Living: Corona Poems A Poetry Chapbook by Mervyn Taylor

Publication Date: October 15, 2020
Paperback, 40 pages
ISBN: 978-1-937968-71-7

SOLD OUT at the publisher. but still available from Small Press Distribution

https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781937968717/news-of-the-living-corona-poems.aspx

It may be true, as often said, that journalism is the first draft of history. But to know how it felt to be alive at any point, to experience the world first-hand, poetry is the truest record. That’s why the poems in this new chapbook from Mervyn Taylor are so important, as poetry, yes, but also as documents of a crucial moment in time. That specific moment was the lockdown in New York City in response to the Covid-19 outbreak, and many of the these poems speak directly of and to that event, beginning with the opening poem that imagines the plants in the Botanic Gardens, blooming unseen. In another poem he writes of bears roaming an art gallery, an image of life as it might be without us, after us. This is news of the living, of a world from which we are excluded, hopefully temporarily, for which we are already growing nostalgic.

But Taylor uses his time in isolation to give us other news of the living, a far less rose-colored view of a world outside rife with racial and 3conomic injustice and inequality. For some, the dislocations of pandemic are nothing new, as in the South African victim of apartheid who observes “Isolation is not new to us, we’ve been / locked down a long time.” In his “Epilogue” he connects the simultaneous crises of Covid and police violence,

On an asteroid called Covid-19
came riding the figure of a man
named George. Which, when

it hit, opened such a crater in
the conscience of mankind that
the protesters are marching still….

In the span of these pages, Taylor gives us news of a world that he misses greatly and longs to rejoin, but he also describes a world that needs very much to be reborn, to be made better. Maybe, just maybe, these poems suggest, our Corona moment of isolation will be a sort of chrysalis, a turning point, a realization that it’s time to leave the old “normal” behind and emerge into a new one. And that would indeed be news.


Praise for Mervyn Taylor & News of the Living

Be infinitely grateful to get NEWS OF THE LIVING: CORONA POEMS from Mervyn Taylor; know that even the unspeakable is made flesh in his spare sorrow, his subtle force:

“In your parks where couples used to
sprawl, waiting for musicians to play…
not a jogger, or black boys who once stood
accused, rounding any of the bends.”
{Corona City}

Or in his lyrical surprises, his song and sense:

“… the high C
of a girl in a bedroom window
passed on to the doorman,
holding his hat like a tray,
carefully, as though a vaccine
had been found for the virus,
as the last note faded away.”
{Corona Impromptu}

—Estha Weiner, author of at the last minute

Early in this poignant collection that covers the pandemic and the protests, Mervyn Taylor, at the height of his powers, writes, “this is the dying season.” These heart-wrenching poems take the reader from Naples to South Africa, from the Botanic Gardens of Brooklyn to the Carnival parades of Trinidad as the world locks down and the death toll rises. Taylor’s is one of the great voices of his generation and these poems prove why. His unflinching cinematographic eye, his ear for language, and his peerless empathy transform the personal into the universal. These poems allow the reader to appreciate the scope of the tragedy that statistics and news stories about the coronavirus cannot adequately convey. These poems are a testament to why humanity will always turn to poetry to tell us “news of the living.” While a glut of pandemic poems have been written during the spring and summer of 2020, Taylor’s skillful collection will be read long after there is a vaccine. Like Larkin, Taylor reminds us, “what will survive of us is love.”

—Jennifer Franklin, author of No Small Gift

Mervyn Taylor, a Trinidad-born poet and longtime Brooklyn resident, has taught at Bronx Community College, The New School, and in the New York City public school system. He is the author of seven previous books of poetry, including The Waving Gallery (2014), and most recently, Country of Warm Snow (2020). About his work, Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott said, “Taylor’s is a quiet voice. His poems possess an admirable degree of subtlety, and a tone that keeps him separate and unique.” Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Slapering Hol Press.