New and On View: Mudlark Poster No. 70 (2007)
Walking with Elihu
Poems by Taylor Graham
Home Economics, 1825 | Seasons in the Smithy | Adolescent Myths
Out of Work | After the Prayer Meeting | A Matter of Pennies
Journey's End | Sanskrit | Forging Iron with Coal
Author's Note: Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith (1810-1879), grew up
in a poor family in New Britain, Connecticut, and apprenticed himself to
the local blacksmith to help support his family. While working full-time
at the forge, he taught himself mathematics, astronomy, geography, and
about fifty languages. Even though nearly penniless, he took on
humanitarian causes and traveled to Europe, where he helped organize
international peace congresses. To learn more about the land and people of
Britain, especially farming practices, he walked from London to the
northern tip of Scotland and then from London to Land's End in the south,
and published journals of his walks. He was appointed consular agent at
Birmingham, England, by President Lincoln. These poems are from a
collection in-progress, working title "Walking with Elihu," which is
looking for a publisher.
Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra
Nevada, and also helps her husband (a retired wildlife biologist) with his
field projects. Her poems have appeared in International Poetry Review,
The Iowa Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry International, Southern
Humanities Review, and elsewhere, including the anthology California
Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday Books, 2004). Her latest
book, The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006), was awarded
the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. Taylor Graham's poems, "Cessna
Down," "Last Seen at the ATM," "3/5, the Andes by proxy," and her essay,
"The Search and the Poem," appeared as Mudlark Poster No. 1 (1997),
inaugurating the Mudlark Poster Series.
Spread the word. Far and wide,
William Slaughter
MUDLARK
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