In this universal yet intimate collection, Jo Taylor applies her skilled and gentle hand to pen deeply lyrical verses, offering poignant observations of everything from relationships that weren’t meant to be, to sentiments on the meaning of faith, from an ode to a cherished baseball glove, to her years navigating life, death, and grief as an ER nurse. In her short stories, we are inspired by a blind artist, touched by a serendipitous pocket angel; our emotions are tapped as an elderly woman embraces her mortality, as a husband grapples with the eternal resting place of his young wife’s ashes. Filled with the tender wisdom of a writer who has experienced the fragility of life, each installment in this collection is visceral and stirring, provoking questions and honest reflection through the author’s candid yet compassionate lens.
Symmetry is beauty
found in flower, nautilus, and human face . . .
Beauty is in the familiar and the divine,
So, too, we find in faces the match to self or God.
And, so too, such beauty sparks thoughtful interpretation on every page of Postcards.
In this universal yet intimate collection, Jo Taylor applies her skilled and gentle hand to pen deeply lyrical verses, offering poignant observations of everything from relationships that weren’t meant to be, to sentiments on the meaning of faith, from an ode to a cherished baseball glove, to her years navigating life, death, and grief as an ER nurse. In her short stories, we are inspired by a blind artist, touched by a serendipitous pocket angel; our emotions are tapped as an elderly woman embraces her mortality, as a husband grapples with the eternal resting place of his young wife’s ashes. Filled with the tender wisdom of a writer who has experienced the fragility of life, each installment in this collection is visceral and stirring, provoking questions and honest reflection through the author’s candid yet compassionate lens.
Symmetry is beauty
found in flower, nautilus, and human face . . .
Beauty is in the familiar and the divine,
So, too, we find in faces the match to self or God.
And, so too, such beauty sparks thoughtful interpretation on every page of Postcards.
She sat in the front pew like a first-chair violin.
Ready, waiting, ever waiting
for a sign from the Conductor.
The beads in her hands passed through fingers
that couldn’t have known hard work.
They were so soft and cool
against my cheek when I would fret,
and Sister Mary
calmly reassured.
There had to be something wrong
with a woman who didn’t want men
to think her pretty, or babies to rush to her
skirts with laughter or tears.
I had the urge to call her
Sister Mary Elephant
and I was scared it would fly out of my mouth one day
when I wasn’t
fully in control.
The other nuns sat scattered in the pews
like burly seeds resting on top of the ground
before the wind covers them with dirt.
It would be a good place for them.
In the ground,
covered with dirt.
They made me feel like I was in
the way, a penance they must attend to
before being given their rightful place
outside under the oak tree
where bugs crawled and rows of marble
stapled the grass.
No thanks, I’d rather go to Africa to hear the
silence of the Serengeti
and risk my soul for being lusted after.
Someday, when my skin cleared
and my chest grew.
And on a day when I was twenty-six,
I sat alone in a booth at a coffee shop
fretting over the last worthless man to leave me
just hours before
and the waitress talked in a low, sweet, heavenly voice
of loading rocks into a wheelbarrow in Africa
to make a road
by hand
and I didn’t see anything wrong with her.
Jo Taylor’s Postcards: Collected Poems and Short Stories is a glowing example of a deeply underappreciated literary form—the single-author collection of both poetry and prose. Examples of such collections often feel as though one or both of the following objectives are at work: (1) to allow the author a fuller spectrum of intermingling lyrical and narrative gestures in the exploration of their subject matter and/or (2) to flaunt their skill across genres. Taylor’s writerly persona—accessible, honest, heartfelt, and unpretentious—suggests that she is not trying to show off in this collection. But the author assuredly puts a full range of talents on display in this deeply moving and complex book.
Taylor’s background in nursing permeates through the entire collection, not only as the subject of a particular poem or story, but also in the obvious empathy and compassion she exhibits for the human characters in her writing. There is a constant tenderness and care for the people populating the work. And this pervasive warmth tempts the reader to believe in a current of goodness running through human beings.
As a poet, Taylor has a sharp control of the lines. Each is a powerful increment in her narrative style, almost always breaking with enviable intention as the captured moment is rendered with emotional depth and sophisticated play. Taylor is particularly adept at inviting multiple resonances and surprise into a line through her enjambment. As these are also the poems of a master storyteller, the reader is consistently treated to a dynamic movement of the speaker-narrator’s perspective, scene and meditation unfold their layers of possibility together.
As a short story writer, Taylor operates with a brilliant and affecting attention to form and authenticity. In “Path Before Giants,” for example, a couple’s walk amongst sequoias is punctuated by the narrator-protagonist’s interjections about the temporality of their marriage. In “You May Die Tonight,” Taylor’s nursing background lends palpable verisimilitude to the intimate, emotional journey of a patient’s final moments. In all of Taylor’s prose, an unparalleled attention to organization and pacing creates a deeply-embodied experience of drama for the reader. The audience is there through Taylor’s calculated control of movement and timing.
In short, Jo Taylor’s Postcards: Collected Poems and Short Stories is a must-read collection. This is an author at the top of her craft, an author who imbues each piece of writing with precise use of technique and powerfully emotional narratives. As an example of the poetry-and-fiction collection, this book might very well stand and an exemplary text that would behoove students of both genres to read.