In this difficult time, Keith Taylor finds connections, not borders. Using subtle brushstrokes, he scrutinizes the balances and imbalances of the natural world and the human with both reverence and humor. We can all learn from these brilliant poems. We too must honor the world, look at it as closely ourselves.
~Jim Daniels, author of Comment Card and Gun/Shy (Wayne State University Press)
In What Can the Matter Be?, Michigan's beloved Keith Taylor explores our Inland Seas' ecosystems, as well as family history and lore, in order 'to prove some things last.' Whether from Isle Royale, his 'wild backyard,' or the 'beautifully indifferent' trees, the wit and wonder of Taylor's essential, intimate poems resist 'Extinction Report[s]' and sustain us.
~Terry Bohnhorst Blackhawk, author of One Less River and Maumee, Maumee
Keith Taylor brings a birder's eye to the everyday, and a birder's ear to what stands out in the silence of what is luminous about the particulars of a life well-lived by paying attention. 'We are made of this,' Taylor tells us. 'Remember this.' Taylor is often astonished by both the beauty of the ordinary world and the inevitable realization that, 'I cannot believe our world is dying.' And yet here in this book the act of looking and listening is a way for us to honor our time here, and 'to prove some things last' and that 'We are quiet here / and think we might stay a while.' These are poems that remind us that 'Still, light rises' 'and in that moment your whole world glows.'
~Peter Markus, author of When Our Fathers Return to Us as Birds (Wayne State University Press)
What Can the Matter Be? is a graceful but also urgent meditation on birds, botany, and humanity. In wide-ranging forms—from very short poems to micro essays—Taylor shares the pleasures of a life spent noticing. Here you'll find piping plovers, watercress, moss, owls, herons, monarchs, salamanders, flycatchers, and prairie warblers. You'll also find stumps, fences, sidewalks, and colossal wildfires. Whether he is thinking about what we have lost or what splendor remains, Keith Taylor summons language of wit and tenderness to ponder our natural world. This is a book of observation, celebration, lament, and delight. It is proof, as Taylor writes, that 'some things last.'
~Cindy Hunter Morgan, author of Harborless and Far Company (both Wayne State University Press)
This stunning hybrid collection of poems and lyric essays carries Taylor's signature precision coupled with the subtle nuances of an observer who always sees under the surface to the plain truth of things. Here, his wisdom in abundance—a perfectly balanced literary restraint that creates those quiet insights that still leap and often ring with irony. From the singular chair at the window to communal environmental grief, from backyard to international settings, these pieces invite our engagement, the pleasure of saying, Oh yes, I see it too. Thank you, Keith Taylor, for being true, for not fully explaining the mystery, for writing what happens if we let it be, if we let it touch us.
~Anne-Marie Oomen, 2023–24 Michigan Author Award recipient and author of As Long As I Know You: The Mom Book
