Review: The Blood of a Tourist by William Taylor Jr.
Paperback: 90 pages
Publisher: sunnyoutside (2014)
Purchase: Available November 4th, 2014 at sunnyoutside
Review by April Michelle Bratten
I had a few clever ideas on how to begin this review. I deleted all of them. I was going to write about this insufferable fly that targeted my face repeatedly while reading this book. I was going to write about how its presence was so fitting, how its determination to attack my skin, its filth, its steadfastness to pursue me, how all of these things became my own little metaphor for death. I was going to write about how painfully human I felt this morning while reading this book, how the words blood, burning, flesh crept off of the pages to fill me with a beautiful sickness, and how I just sat there, vulnerable, allowing it to happen. This is why I love William Taylor Jr.’s poetry. While reading, you become a little more observant, a little more aware of yourself. It is a striking blow, but a necessary one.
William Taylor Jr.’s newest book, The Blood of a Tourist, is not flashy. It is not blown up with heavy metaphor. It is not convoluted. Like all of Taylor’s work, this book is straight forward and truthful. It focuses on Taylor’s experiences and observations in his San Francisco neighborhood, where life can be filled with despair, debauchery, and death, but beauty can still be found somewhere inside of the sadness. An excerpt from his poem, “All We’ve Simply Thrown Away,” is a great example of this stripped-down shine:
The wine does what it can
but the sadness in our blood
is older than time.
Our damage shines best
in these small hours
and this is the beauty I want to remember.
It suddenly strikes me
that so many lives could be made
from all we’ve simply
thrown away,
as we cross our hearts and make a pact
to stay beautiful until the dawn,
when the sun will come and
burn us off like fog.
The Blood of a Tourist is a bloody good book, pieced together beautifully by sunnyoutside press. The stunning cover art is by Jonathan Barcan. Pick up a copy and experience the human in you.
A past contributor of Up the Staircase Quarterly, you can read more of William Taylor Jr.’s writing here and here.
Publisher: sunnyoutside (2014)
Purchase: Available November 4th, 2014 at sunnyoutside
Review by April Michelle Bratten
I had a few clever ideas on how to begin this review. I deleted all of them. I was going to write about this insufferable fly that targeted my face repeatedly while reading this book. I was going to write about how its presence was so fitting, how its determination to attack my skin, its filth, its steadfastness to pursue me, how all of these things became my own little metaphor for death. I was going to write about how painfully human I felt this morning while reading this book, how the words blood, burning, flesh crept off of the pages to fill me with a beautiful sickness, and how I just sat there, vulnerable, allowing it to happen. This is why I love William Taylor Jr.’s poetry. While reading, you become a little more observant, a little more aware of yourself. It is a striking blow, but a necessary one.
William Taylor Jr.’s newest book, The Blood of a Tourist, is not flashy. It is not blown up with heavy metaphor. It is not convoluted. Like all of Taylor’s work, this book is straight forward and truthful. It focuses on Taylor’s experiences and observations in his San Francisco neighborhood, where life can be filled with despair, debauchery, and death, but beauty can still be found somewhere inside of the sadness. An excerpt from his poem, “All We’ve Simply Thrown Away,” is a great example of this stripped-down shine:
The wine does what it can
but the sadness in our blood
is older than time.
Our damage shines best
in these small hours
and this is the beauty I want to remember.
It suddenly strikes me
that so many lives could be made
from all we’ve simply
thrown away,
as we cross our hearts and make a pact
to stay beautiful until the dawn,
when the sun will come and
burn us off like fog.
The Blood of a Tourist is a bloody good book, pieced together beautifully by sunnyoutside press. The stunning cover art is by Jonathan Barcan. Pick up a copy and experience the human in you.
A past contributor of Up the Staircase Quarterly, you can read more of William Taylor Jr.’s writing here and here.
William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. His books include Broken When We Got Here, An Age of Monsters and The Hunger Season. The Blood of a Tourist, a book of new poems, is forthcoming from Sunnyoutside Press. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Acker Award. williamtaylorjr.tumblr.com
