For those of you in SoCal, two events, the first a broadcast, the second a
reading, followed by bio and quotes and a sample poem. Mervyn Taylor may be
the best poet you discover this year.

1.
>On Monday, April 5th @ 10pm, we introduce Mr. Mervyn
>Taylor sharing poetry from his newly released book.  
>Mr. Taylor, visiting from New York, is promoting his book
>while sharing his poetry.
>
>If you`re in the environs, tune~in to 90.7-FM (Los
>Angeles) or 98.7-FM (Santa Barbara) at 10pm for some
>poetry and music.
>
>Blessings w/ Peace!
>
>Angalifu
>Producer, Host
>KUUMBA - Creativity Through Music & Poetry
>KPFK - Los Angeles, 90.7-FM
>

2.
On Wednesday, April 7th at 4:30 at UC-San Diego, in the Visual Arts
Performance Space, a FREE reading by Mervyn Taylor.


Mervyn Taylor divides his time between New York and his native Trinidad.
Formerly a treasury worker in Trinidad, he currently teaches high school
English in the New York City public school system and creative writing at
The New School for Social Research. His poems have been published in
numerous magazines and several anthologies, among them Giant Talk (Random
House) and Rock Against the Wind (William Morrow). He is a graduate of
Howard University and holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University.
Junction Press published his first book, _An Island of His Own_, and now,
still warm from the press, his second, _The Goat_.


"Using imagery that is subtle yet richly evocative, Mervyn Taylor creates
whole lives in just a few short lines. Piquant details and a detached,
acutely perceptive voice draw the reader into atmospheres swollen with
feeling. These are poems that open up new worlds in which readers may
live."	                                 Publishers Weekly
              							      

"[In his poems] I have discovered Taylor’s remarkable ministorytelling
talent, his cool, aphoristic phrasing, his tonally discreet prose lyricism,
and his quiet, ironic world view. A poet of technical expertise, thematic
understatement, language subtlety, and human warmth and compassion."
    	Andrew Salkey, World Literature Today

"Mervyn is a wary technician, even a cunning one. He works in taut meters
that want to cohere the pressures of the casual. Mervyn Taylor is an honest
poet, and that is high and sufficient praise indeed."			             Derek
Walcott  	



The End of Their Days


I. The Father

After he died it was
as if the flooring
had been taken away
and we walked for
the longest while on
sand, water lapping
at our feet.

Standing tip-toe
the mother would run
her hand along the back
of the shelves and find
a few pennies or none,

and rain blew in on
us in the kitchen
as she turned a pot
dark as the weather,

and the ghost of a goat
butted the ghost of
the man and Fitzy
his helper paraded
with a switch, small
cascadoo ghosts leaping
in the kitchen.

Then the Indian
came and laid linoleum
throughout the house
so we walked on that
and he put a rail
on the back steps so
the mother wouldn’t fall.

Then she hurt her foot
on a Morris chair and
the wound grew into
a lifesore that sent up
a warm smell that
lit up the house,

and one Christmastime
she dyed her hair
and the chemicals left
her eyes sealed tight
and the windows
curtainless, her head
blacking the pillow,
the bed unmade,
the house undone.


II. The Mother

After the boys migrated
she held out as long
as she could, but
there was no one to send
to the shop for Phensic,
and the wound would
shrink to a pinhead
then blossom again.

And her best friend
held her hand as she asked
for the men in her life:
the one who looked so
much like her they could
pass for twins, who
gave her her first son,

and the one who gave her
her second and built
them this house growing
silenter by the days.
Then the one who’d been
watching all along, who
knew her lonely story and
came to people her place
with strangers.

“Into thy hands,”
her friend intoned.
She repeated it,
and the breadfruit tree
dropped a ripe one on
the roof that night,
the room growing
as hot as La Brea noon.

Her eyes looked  
at the ceiling to see what 
repairs had to be done
and her ankles twitched
as they propped her up 
to look over the wall
for anyone who
at last was coming.


III. The Boy

He thinks he heard 
his father calling
as the goats pull
the old man up and
down the road,
he sees

his father’s hand
exploring the diseased
gut of a ram, worms
curling from the hole
onto an open palm.

The same hand
polished brass buttons,
lifted the silver whistle
that blew
to send the trains
lurching forward.

He begins to follow
the old man’s path 
down the uprooted track.
He begins to occupy
the one-room depot,
a relic himself.

He is deeded
more than the house
and goat pen.
More than once
the corporal stops him
as he combs Arouca,
looking for Telemaque,
the old man’s one
and only friend.




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