Unmonstrous

by John Allen Taylor

John Allen Taylor’s debut chapbook Unmonstrous chronicles a path through and beyond trauma, through pain and after pain. This is a book that embraces the journey toward building and trusting relationships after sexual abuse and sings a song of survival. The intimate speaker of these lyrically muscular and technically masterful poems fights to reconcile issues of identity, faith, childhood, and loss.

Genres: Poetry

35 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2019

About the author

John Allen Taylor grew up in Los Angeles, CA, completed his bachelors in Spokane, WA, his MFA in poetry at Emerson College in Boston, MA, & currently lives in Ypsilanti, MI, where he directs the Writing Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. UNMONSTROUS is his first chapbook. He bakes sourdough bread.

Reviews

[Ben Goldfarb]

A fearless chapbook that leavens trauma with tender moments of creaturely grace: its pages teem with hermit crabs, kestrels, chickadees, and mallards, animals whose loveliness doesn't quite counteract the cruelty of humans.

[Joanna Szabo]

A beautiful and heart wrenching chapbook that brought me to tears more than once—sometimes because of the trauma of the content, but more often because of the power of a particular line or image. There’s far more than just sadness in this little book. It seems to me that the full spectrum of human emotion is somehow contained within. I will keep this book close to my heart.

[Shelley]

I'm a peripatetic poetry reader but this book spoke to me in haunting, painful language. In Unmonstrous, Taylor chronicles agonizing childhood abuse and its ongoing effects. He has been to Hell and back and takes the reader on his harrowing journey with compelling poems. I was hoping for Taylor's journey to lead to a place of hope and I was rewarded with a glimpse of the poet choosing love over despair.

Unmonstrous is at once excruciating and tender. I admire Taylor for baring his soul and sharing, in beautiful language, a trauma that no child should ever have to endure and from which no adult should have to endeavor to overcome.

[Kelli]

A haunting collection laying bare a lifetime of trauma and pain, abuse and self-harm, but Taylor is not defeated. These echoes and roars of hurt permeate a life that is clearly defined by finding the beauty and grace in everything. The smallest animals are noticed and cherished, moments of shared music between neighbors, reminiscing on favorite treats, joyful adventures with a lover.
“Let’s unearth me from myself.”

[Bill DeGenaro]

I usually read books of poetry slowly, 4-5 poems at a time, and then take a break for a day or so. But I read "Unmonstrous" in a sitting, lost in the words and the worlds. Individual moments stayed with me (a hermit crab here, a mantra about survival there), but the really remarkable thing was how cohesive the text was, how one poem built on the previous one. Really fantastic!

[Kate Gaskin]

The poems in Unmonstrous sing with a lush immediacy. These poems are bold and beautifully lyrical. They're about survival, healing, and finding love in the particulars of every day. I can't wait for more from John Allen Taylor.

[Stephen Furlong]

John Allen Taylor's chapbook is one of those books that will stay with me for a long, long time. The frankness of language found in the title poem and the tenderness found in "Love Poem for Marie" complement each other. I am thankful for this book, always and all ways.

[Kelly Thomas]

What Taylor does with perspective, the stark interiority and distant exteriority is haunting. This book is full of surprise in terms of the contrast between mundanity and trauma. How each pass through us commenting on one another's presence.