Step on a Crack

Marilyn L. Taylor writes both wickedly delightful and deeply compassionate poems. Known as one of America’s chief formalist poets, Taylor here gives us plenty of traditional forms: villanelle, sestina, sonnet, rhymed quatrains, a sapphic, and even—unexpectedly—a superb prose poem, “Dismay.” Elsewhere, she sends a tongue-in-cheek “Open Letter to Grownup Kids Who Call Home,” records a mother’s dying anger, admonishes a mother of beauty queens, as well as mothers who mistreat their children in public. Then, amazingly, she turns poking fun into a kind of quiet loving. I’ve read thousands of poetry chapbooks. From beginning to end, Step on a Crack is one of the finest three or four of them ever to cross my life.
~ Dick Allen, Connecticut State Poet Laureate (2010-2015) and author of Zen Master Poems

Since 1994 when I first read Marilyn Taylor’s work, I continue to marvel at her deft use of form to delve into the human condition. She makes sonnets, villanelles, and sestinas look easy. They aren’t. She’s that good. She pulls us in up to our ankles and before we can take a breath, she’s got us swimming in deeper water, the harder truths. From the opening title poem, “Step on a Crack: a Charm” to the penultimate poem, “if, in October,” Taylor has framed a book that hits the heart and heartbreak of living. The book’s closing poem will take you into the deepest water of all.
~ Susan Elbe, author of The Map of What Happened

In this terrific new collection, Marilyn Taylor tells us to go ahead, “Step on a crack, /bring your mother back.” She also brings us images like the piano tuner who “wrings concordance from the air”; two small boys, “the cuffs of their designer jeanlets rolled”; a child whose violin produces “only gravel, only scratches, no silk” Details like this show us what it’s like to be fully alive now, on this planet. With lively wit, word play, and inventive use of form, these poems are serious fun. Crack open this book, and dig in.
Barbara Crooker, author of Les Fauves