An Afternoon of Pocket Billiards: Poems

by Henry S. Taylor

Taylor, Henry

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database named Henry Taylor.

Henry S. Taylor is an American Poet and winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for his book The Flying Change .

Taylor was raised as a Quaker in rural Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1965. He received his MFA from Hollins University (formerly Hollins College) in 1966, after which he taught literature and co-directed the MFA program in creative writing at American University from 1971-2003.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

PASTORAL

In the country, you learn to live at peace
with your neighbor; he is father away,
but when you meet, you always stop and talk.

You learn that he is a pathologist
who every day kisses his wife goodbye
and goes to the lab, and blows up a goat.

The trees grow up around you as he speaks.

Afterwards, he counts the fragments, notes
their average size, and calculates the impact
with which they struck the walls.

In the evening,
you might hear him mowing his lawn, or closing
his garage door for the night. Cricket sounds
surround you both out here; in the morning
when you pass him on the road, you smile and wave.

[A. Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some excellent poems in this thin volume.