Dr Andrew Taylor’s current research centres on the work and practice of Liverpool poet, Adrian Henri. As a practising poet, Dr Taylor’s research also considers the poetics of writing, exploring ways in which writing is an ongoing conversation with oneself, an ever-evolving process that cannot be predicted, concluded, or fully known.
A Poetics of Absence
from Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: Manifestos and Unmanifestos, ed. Rupert Loydell (Cambridge: Salt, 2009)
At night I think of you, I haven’t forgotten.
Is blossom memorial enough?
There is a need for change, I feel that need
self-definition is the hardest part
At the moment of crisis, phones shift
from being mere tools of convenience.
They begin to create a poetry of unease.
Is this a poetry of unease?
The excitement is in producing the unknown.
The city seduces
the proximity of memory
Communication with oneself is essential
The field of the poet’s experience was democratized
to a degree that levelled it to one enormous field of
closely observed particulars – both physical and mental –
The present is being eaten by the past
belief and proximity are connected closely
From the heart
despite cliché
a fear of drowning
Poetics steals from anywhere
A distracted geography
home from distance
you were so beautiful
from ‘Catalf’:
Gone my friend grief will make her heart burst
Can we go on like this with our hearts tied to the land?
There is no comfort in this world that’s why I love you today
Must you be on your way?
There are too many ghosts of the past in my life living with me
Communication the everyday
broken soul loss heartache
no desire to win competitions
a discourse of the normal with clarity
reader’s desire poet’s intention
creation and interpretation
dialogue with myself
irrelevance of intention
The canvas spotted with paint and glitter: It was a bad painting and it’s getting better
Memory is key no matter how old or recent
Loss is key
from ‘Poetry and Skin Cream’:
When the fog lifts and you walk away
I hope that you’ll glance over your shoulder
and wave from the built up distance
from ‘Catalf’:
Things will never be the same
again light will angle differently
cold will eat summer
How things will be after event
how things will sit
Come to me once more my love
A sense of passing with hope
Writing the self the self is writing
Notes:
Iain Sinclair, Theatre of the City in The Guardian, Thursday July 14th 2005, (London and Manchester)
Siri Hustvedt, What I Loved (London: Sceptre, 2003), p.177
Robert Sheppard, The Necessity of Poetics, (Liverpool: Ship of Fools, 2002), p.5
Andrew Taylor, ‘Catalf’, unpublished poem, 28th July 2005. [Chapter 10, p.351]
Epic45, ‘Walk led to Happiness’ on England Fallen Over EP (Make Mine Music: MMM014, 2005)
Epic45, ‘The Year Ahead’ on England Fallen Over EP (Make Mine Music: MMM014, 2005)
Portal, ‘Waves & Echoes’ on Waves and Echoes (Make Mine Music: MMM012 2005)
Andrew Taylor, ‘Poetry and Skin Cream’ in Poetry and Skin Cream (Liverpool: erbacce Press, 2004), p.1 [Chapter 10, p.228]
Andrew Taylor, ‘Catalf’, unpublished poem, 28th July 2005. [Chapter 10, p.351]
Mark Kozelek, ‘Duk Koo Kim’ (Vinyl Films 10″vinyl recording 2004)