Hello Reader –
I’m Bill Taylor, the owner of this site and the author of all the ‘Original Poems’ and related notes on this site. I live in Greenville South Carolina with my wife and three kids.
My main point in producing this site is to archive my own best poems, and create a platform for (a few) people to read them. But, being a person who lives in the regular day-to-day world, I understand that most people are ambivalent about poetry at best. I think that’s because a lot of poems aren’t poems you’d particularly want to read. They’re too long, too dense, too self-serious, too confusing. I don’t believe in that kind of poetry. It is my goal to write things worth reading, and to collect and share other poems worth reading. I hope that’s what you find on this site.
Technically speaking, I am a published author….not in poetry, but rather in the field of engineering where I make my living. I’ve been published several times in journals of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and a few other like-minded technical publications. But I’ve never submitted anything to a poetry-related journal, outside maybe the student publication back at NC State in the 1990s.
Outside of a career in engineering, writing and reading poetry, and spending time with my family, not much time remains. I like to fly fish when I can get away long enough to do it. Often that requires a hike deep into the woods, which for me is a good time.
In terms of poets I appreciate, I follow Wallace Stevens, Donald Justice, and Robert Francis. If you like the poems on this site, you can find much better examples from these real poets, just by looking them up on the internet. I also owe a debt to my college poetry professor Gerald Barrax, who recently passed away. I knew him for only a year or two, long ago. But that was a formative time, and I learned much of what I know about poetry from him.
Art is for everyone. Poetry is for everyone. That is why we should make it accessible.
I hope you enjoy the site-
-Bill