Maria Taylor's first collection, Melanchrini (Nine Arches, 2012), was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. Since 2015, she has been Reviews Editor for Under the Radar, and she blogs at Commonplace.
'Commonplace', however, is precisely what she is not. There’s no telling what she’ll do from one poem to the next, which is only one of the things that makes this pamphlet such a delight. As she said herself in a Poetry Spotlight interview: ‘A successful collection is a little world in itself.’
And so it was. But alas this lovely pamphlet is now sold out. Sorry! But here is one of its poems for you free.
Travelling on the 10:21 with Tom Hardy
Hardy calls to his dead wife
at Castle Boterel, St. Andrew’s Tower.
He calls quietly over Wi-Fi,
Can it be you I hear?
Fields fly without answers.
A smudge of rabbit hops away
and vanishes into a grassy tuft.
A horse’s silhouette awaits a rider.
My heart’s a dog-eared Metro.
I hold my book under the table
as if I’m keeping his love a secret.
I am. We’re both out of style
amid a one-upmanship of screens.
His simple question skims the roofs
of expanding towns. It pauses
over a clock’s stopped hands.
