Taylor brings 'Life' to Ann Arbor

Local poet Keith Taylor summed up his own work best with the title of one of his collections, "Life Science."

PREVIEW
	Keith Taylor Today at 4 p.m. Rackham Amphitheater Free

Writer Thomas Lynch agrees, writing, "(Taylor's) poems (have a) generous and persistent witness: of flora and fauna and his fellow humans."

Best of all, in poems like "Counting Birds at the Bookshop," Taylor captures the experience of thousands of Ann Arbor residents and students with a careful eye. He writes of the campus' flocks of birds, "this winter's murder of crows gather(ing) each evening on three elms half a block down around the college arts building," and Ann Arbor can see the image.

But Taylor's work is not bound to Ann Arbor, as his four books of poetry and his one collection of short stories span generations between Canada and California. A current manager at Shaman Drum Bookstore, his experience includes teaching at U of M, house painting and working as a pinball arcade attendant. It is obvious that Taylor's work depends on such varied experiences.

On the writing side of Taylor's life, he has served as an Isle Royale National Park Artist in Residence and earned a fellowship with the National Endowment for the Arts. Concerning these achievements, Taylor noted in a recent interview, "I like being a local writer, but recognition from the big world out there is nice."

Taylor grew up in Alberta, Canada, his father a minister in a conservative Christian denomination similar to the Amish faith. "The combination of religion and countryside" was important, Taylor said, producing a "lifelong concern with human actions," even though he no longer practices Christianity. In his collection, "Learning to Dance," Taylor reflects this blend of natural and human questioning, writing, "memory is a rock, broken into something not quite soil, ten thousand scattered, glistening flecks of stones."

Nature is Taylor's most sacred mystery, as his work proves. A love for birds is a major motif for the writer, as their distant, natural observation of humanity is captured in the short story, "Lament for the Crested Shelduck." Above a Russian boat, Taylor writes, "the birds would have been part of the mist in the evening, swimming off from the riverboat, reclusive and wary of men." Nature's stunning beauty and indifference and Taylor's conservative upbringing are the major aspects of Taylor's "Life Science."

His more adult reflections in "Dance Suite" explore his new identity after escaping childhood religious dilemmas. "Dance is as real as rocks ... as love, as someplace lived in," Taylor decides about the once forbidden activity.

Currently, Taylor has decided to settle in Ann Arbor, feeling "it was important to find a place for a home ... Ann Arbor has been good to me."

11-18-97