![]() Like the days of Homer, lyric tales have found their way to us, using words set to a rhythm, hitting us like waves playing against the shoreline. Poetry, when it is done best immortalizes the triumph of man over the elements, shouts the glory of the human spirit, and whispers the tragedies that blow across the universe like passing storms. The poet Kevin J. Taylor finds himself standing on a cliff at the edge of eternity, looking out across the vastness of space and with his book “Letter to the White Imbongi” building a bridge that carries us past ourselves, towards unimagined futures, leaving us back where we started, hopeful, wishful and oh so powerful. Taylor delivers a book that is spiritual to say the least, fixing the reader into strange, yet familiar situations, where they must look to the future, take in the past, notice every detail from an exterior view. Reading “Letter to the White Imbongi” is like being a child again and having your father lift you up and fly you across the house, except in the case of this collection of poems, we are taken into memories that feel more real than any room we flew across as kids. If the goal of art is to communicate, to move, then Taylor is a master, because he effortlessly maneuvers our thoughts and emotions, and the final result is a feeling that must be what astronauts experience because the world becomes smaller and we’re left to float across the cosmos like a giant kite. Traditionally, an Imbongi is the name-title of a Praise Poet. The word comes from South Africa but suits this Canadian born poet’s purposes extremely well. He is like the all-mighty and powerful Oz, except instead of standing behind the curtain, he’s at the crossroads of the universe with a bent ear, open arms and quickly moving hands, writing down the meaning of it all. From life to death and back again the story unfolds and drifts over landscapes. There is no leaf left unturned and Taylor manages to communicate the whole of existence with a few concise lines on a few, mostly empty pages. As one flips through the work, it’s hard not to notice the emptiness, or rather the vastness of available space. Kevin Taylor does in a few lines what most writers need thick volumes packed with words to communicate, and we’re all the better for the simplicity and the feeling of having plenty of room to move around in.
One day in the future we will look back at our lifetime spent doing the things we usually do with a lifetime, smile fondly and steady ourselves for the next voyage. Taylor’s poems make us feel like that, no matter where we are on this adventure called life. His poetry is in the tradition of The Odyssey because he dishes up an epic worthy to be sung and passed down, but perhaps is even more remarkable because he does it in about 20 pages. Get ready to fly to heights well worth the trip. Kevin J. Taylor will take you across eternity and stretch it even further. Enjoy the ride! For more information please visit http://poetkevinjtaylor.tumblr.com
2 Comments
Marianne
12/21/2013 03:22:57 am
I have long been a huge fan of the poet Kevin Taylor. This is a a perfect and 100% accurate review, I could not have said it better, in fact the review exactly states how I have always felt about Kevin's prose, in awe at it's ability to communicate.
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