World Class Poetry Blog

About the poet
10 September 2007, the poet @ 7:35 pm

Allen Taylor has been writing poetry since first introduced to Sharon Olds’ Satan Says while in college in the late 1980s. The muse unleashed, he found poetry to be a natural medium through which he could shock, enlighten, amuse, and prod others to laugh, cry, or emote uncontrollably. He found that he could control the world through just one word or, if necessary, two. The feeling was better than Toyota.

His meandering life has given him many opportunities to overcome his natural shyness and lack of confidence. His writing has improved over the years and he has managed to walk away with some publishing successes. He self-published his first book of poems in 2001, a collection appropriately titled Entering the Millennium.

In 1997 Allen joined the National Guard and attended officer candidate school. A growing discomfort with the inborn jingoism of military culture led him to question his decision, but by the time he could end his service his unit had been activated for a year long deployment in Iraq. Against the war from its outset, Allen was faced with one of the most difficult decisions of his life. He had married his wife Theresa just nine months earlier and decided to honor his commitment to the military by serving in Iraq despite his moral conscience being against the war. While in Iraq he managed to pen more than a handful of poems, some of which have been subsequently published.

Allen Taylor has self-published two chapbooks since returning from Iraq in December 2005, Going Dutch, which is available for purchase as an e-book at World Class Poetry, and I Like War, which is forthcoming. The poems in Going Dutch are based on a trip to Germany for R & R leave in September 2005. Allen met his wife in Frankfurt and together they toured the country by train. I Like War consists of poems written while in Iraq. Allen is working on revising poems he wrote while in Iraq and plans to publish them as a book upon completion. He is the webmaster at http://www.world-class-poetry.com.

1 Comment a “About the poet”

1. Christopher D. White — February 25, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
   

   Hello, fellow poet. This is the EIC at Rager Media in Akron, (AKA Rubber City, Ohio. Home of the forthcoming new $900 million Goodyear World Headquarters, which is already underway, and home of the greatest basketball player in the history of hoops, LeBron James.)

   I’m digging your quirky, fun, and imaginative writing style, you’ve got an interesting bio, (I, too, did a reluctant stint with Uncle Sam, but without having to serve in combat), and your blog is a great resource for aspiring writers. Thanks for giving us a mention, btw. I’ll be adding your blog to our blogroll at The Akrocentric (see ohio.com). Keep up the good work. –Christopher D. White

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