THE HUNGER SEASON by William Taylor, Jr.
108 pages, 5″ x 8″ trade paperback, published
by Sunnyoutside Press
Review By Wolfgang Carstens
Rarely, you stumble across a book of poetry that blows your mind and you
think “This is greatness,” and you wonder why the world hasn’t heard about
the author and why his books aren’t sitting in the checkout aisle of every
grocery store.
“Here is a book of important truths,” you say, “surely these words are as
important as food, cigarettes and beer.” William Taylor, Jr.’s new poetry
collection THE HUNGER SEASON (Sunnyoutside 2009) is one of these
rare books.
The conflict within THE HUNGER SEASON is a familiar one: the burden
of time and the search for meaning within a meaningless world. The author
is a realist: accepting that everyone will die, that most will die without ever
becoming beautiful again, and that no divine hand will intervene to help us.
Beauty, for William Taylor, Jr., involves that quality that sets you apart from
everyone else. It could be the way that you sing a particular song, the way
that you prepare Chicken Cacciatore, or something as simple as the way
you whistle when you walk. These qualities are ones that you once pos-
sessed but have long forgotten somewhere along the path on this strange
adventure that we call life. When this happens, according to Taylor, “this is
where / all other deaths / begin” (from “Poem”).
Most of the world, according to Taylor, falls within this category of walking
dead. The author, it seems, counts himself among these zombies. In his
poem “A Partial Account of an Ordinary Tuesday Afternoon,” Taylor re-
counts the story of a suicidal man clinging to a ledge four stories above
the street. The poet searches for meaning here, wondering if this was
something “I was somehow meant to witness, / if the events unfolding
could hold some special / meaning for me, if there was some kind of
knowledge / that could be gleaned.” Here the poet is searching,always
searching for something to help make sense of this senseless world. The
poem ends brilliantly with this ongoing search for meaning: “as the Korean
woman in the nail salon / across the street gazes at me / and I back at her.”
Along this constant search for meaning, which is ultimately a selfish one,
Taylor adopts a simple strategy: avoid immediate pain and try not to hurt
others more than you have to. More importantly perhaps, Taylor advises
us to appreciate those “tiny moments of useless beauty” like “the sun / the
rain / pretty girls in the subway / a decent poem / a good sandwich / a joke
well told / honest laughter /music / and wine / our fingers touching / the act
of creation / the cat asleep on the bed” (from “Tiny Moments of Useless
Beauty”).
Taylor’s landscape is the human condition; his palate hunger and longing;
his brush, a pen which he wields with considerable skill. THE HUNGER
SEASON addresses the fundamental questions of our existence. Although
Taylor’s words are often melancholy and troubling, there is a positive energy
burning at the center of this phenomenal collection. These poems have the
power to heal, to mend the cracks in us, to satiate a hunger that most of us
cannot name.
Bureaucrats, she spits
the goddamned bureaucrats will kill us all!
I turn away
and shuffle myself deeper
into the crowd.
Though in theory
I agree with her observation,
I can’t find it in myself
to get too worked up about it all.
I tend to suffer
in silence, as the days are filled
with enough noise
as it is.
And perhaps I am already defeated
because I expect the trains to be late
and overcrowded
and I don’t ask much
of my fellow man
or the days and the nights
upon the earth
and I don’t believe the wars will stop
no matter how many people
walk the streets with cardboard signs.
I want to tell the woman
she might as well be
angry at the sun
but I don’t think she would
understand.
(from “Angry at the Sun”)
William Taylor, Jr. is one of the finest poets writing today. His HUNGER
SEASON is a mandatory purchase for anyone interested in underground
literature. And with books like THE HUNGER SEASON, I can guarantee
you that William Taylor, Jr. won’t remain underground much longer. These
poems are pushing through darkness and concrete where they bloom in
the sunlight like strange, beautiful flowers.
to order: www.sunnyoutside.com
(also available from SPD, Powell’s and Amazon.com)
