To Let the Sun

John Allen Taylor lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is the author of Unmonstrous, and his work has appeared in Booth, The Common, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He directs the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program and coordinates the Writing Center at University of Michigan-Dearborn.

"In the thick of grief before the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene mistakes Jesus for a gardener and asks where he has taken the body of Christ. Only when he calls her by her name does she see him. In John Allen Taylor's To Let the Sun, the body is the empty tomb, the garden, the gardener, and the names that return us to ourselves. In this Edenic reversal, Taylor calls back the animals, undoes the spell of flesh, and reclaims the garden ruined long ago. The poems in To Let the Sun invoke new world orders, even as Taylor asks, 'Oh Lord is faith / fury // or a bouquet of poppies / left to rot // on the windowsill?' The poems, like traumatic memory, riot and distort, name and unname. A dazzling debut." - Natalie Eilbert, author of Overland"Abuse, a child's suffering - years of silencing and shuttered pain in these poems we witness the speaker's tormented journey to feel, to live, to find his home at the same time, we see with this poet's utterly clear eyes nature's literalness and wonder. To Let the Sun is deeply meaningful of the speaker's personal will and this poet's exceptional accomplishment." - Laurie Lamon, author of Without Wings"Taylor's voice is one of meditation and reclamation, elegance and unflinching strength. To Let the Sun shows us how to live in the aftermath of trauma, how to come 'into the world bloody' and remain: 'Once, my grandmother / asked if I am born // again. Yes, I told her, I was." - Diannely Antigua, author of Good Monster"There is a tenderness in Taylor's poetry that I can't find anywhere else, and I know I'll be returning to this collection for the rest of my life. Taylor writes, 'come amp see / it's not so terrible to exist' , and I believe him." - Paige Lewis, author of Space Struck