TAYLOR MALI is one of the few people in the world to have no job other than that of “poet.” Articulate, accessible, passionate, and downright funny, Mali studied drama in Oxford with members of The Royal Shakespeare Company and was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, and played the “Armani-clad villain” of the documentary film SlamNation. His poem “What Teachers Make” has been viewed over 4 million times on YouTube. Mali is vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world and in 2012 he reached his goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through “poetry, persuasion, and perseverance.” His book of essays, What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World, is his passionate defense of teachers drawing on his own experiences, both in the classroom and as a traveling poet. Taylor Mali is is the author of two books of poetry, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What Learning Leaves (Hanover 2002), and four CDs of spoken word. Mali received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop “Teacher! Teacher!” a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math winner of best solo performance at the 2001 U. S. Comedy Arts Festival. Formerly president of Poetry Slam Incorporated, the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, Taylor Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops.
Taylor Mali
This Year's Festival Lineup includes:
Together we’ll work on your poems inside and out, in our hands-on line-by-line discussion of three poems by each participant. To shape our conversation and study, submit two one-page poems and be ready to write a ... Read more >
The focus of this workshop will be on revision: how can we acquire the tools we need to revise our poems on our own? Many aspiring and even experienced poets find it challenging to revise ... Read more >
Every writer has their strengths, but we often tend to over-rely on what we already know we do well. In this workshop, we will focus on how to create a balance of tension in poems. ... Read more >
This workshop will focus on the revision process. We’ll discuss various revision strategies that will help us tighten our poems, but also explore revision as a process that allows us to imagine other possibilities for ... Read more >
In this workshop we will explore how poems need not end with an ascendant or descendent gesture to be as haunting and powerful as a poem that affirms the human condition and assures us that ... Read more >
All poetry is conventional and all convention exists in public spaces and in history. This workshop will take these truths to be fundamental to free verse poetry and, drawing from them, will examine the various ... Read more >
Participants will discuss how the poet is handling content – the decisions that have been made in terms of diction, form, pacing, syntax, etc. with a mind to coming up with useful ideas for revision. ... Read more >
In this generative workshop, we will be writing and revising poems of delight, celebration, and grief, paying special attention to tone of voice. Tone is often defined as an author’s attitude toward her subject, but ... Read more >
This year’s Thomas Lux Memorial Reading and Special Interview Event will feature a one-on-one interview of Gregory Orr by Laure-Anne Bosselaar to be followed by a Q&A session with the poet on Tuesday, ... Read more >
Descriptions of 2021 Poet-at-Large Brian Turner’s virtual high school performances and a special evening event with this distinguished poet are forthcoming. Read more >