John Taylor
The Apocalypse Tapestries
ISBN 1-879378-51-5 (paper)
ix, 126 pages, $15.00
Poems, prose poems and reflections,
some inspired by memories of travels and everyday life,
others by old tapestries of St. John writing the Book of Revelations.
JOHN TAYLOR has lived in France since 1977. He is the author of seven collections of stories, short prose, and poetry. The Apocalypse Tapestries has been translated into Italian (Gli arazzi dell'apocalisse, Hebenon, 2007) and will appear in a French version (La Fontaine Invisible, Tarabuste) in late 2012. Taylor's Now the Summer Came to Pass is now available as a Xenos Books e-book.
Taylor is also the author of Paths to Contemporary French Literature (Transaction Publishers, 2004, 2007, 2011), a three-volume collection of critical essays. His Into the Heart of European Poetry (Transaction Publishers, 2008) similarly introduces English readers to important European poets. Also active as a translator, he has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Sonia Raiziss Charitable Foundation for his translations of French poetry. His recent translations comprise Pierre-Albert Jourdan’s The Straw Sandals (Chelsea Editions, 2011), Philippe Jaccottet’s And, Nonetheless (Chelsea Editions, 2011), and Jacques Dupin’s Of Flies and Monkeys (The Bitter Oleander, 2011). Taylor has been a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement for the past 25 years. He writes the “Poetry Today” column in the Antioch Review.
Reviews
"Blending poetry and prose, Taylor shows a notable breadth of vision and voice, moving unpredictably among places and times, recalling characters, dialogues from his first years in Europe - the lost souls seeking renewal in Greece (on Samos, near Patmos, where St. John composed his work), the young Bible thumper in Copenhagen, the denizens of the red-light district in Hamburg." ~ Jason Weiss, Chelsea No. 78
"The Apocalypse Tapestries is a beautiful, spell binding collection of prose and poetry that literally sweeps you up in its subtle language... This is a rewarding book that will get you reflecting on the paths of your own life, the roads taken, and those passed by." ~ Michelle Priotta, The Connexion, August 2005
"These poems enact a genuine search for revelation, not an unveiling from a single source but rather from small, local glimpses, as if the truth were broken up and scattered in unlikely places... The reader finishes The Apocalypse Tapestries with the pleasure of having read something moving, probing, and significant." ~ Carl Dennis
"This book is not only a modern commentary on the Bible and Tradition, but a centuries-old Pilgrim's Progress woven with the author’s life... Taylor’s language is as unbiased and simple as the rocks and shards and scoria and petrified wood bits that I see in my driveway every day... I have the sense that The Apocalypse Tapestries is destined to become a minor classic." ~ Larry Woiwode
"John Taylor’s mastery of words and power of imagination surmount any qualms over religious orientation, or for that matter, mere atheism... Suffice it to say that the poems are “there”--not in splinters--but in wholeness, completion and clarity. The pilgrim has achieved apotheosis." ~ Martin Abramson, Poets’ Quarterly, Winter 2011 (Click here for the entire review)
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