Claire Taylor

@clairemtaylor.com

2150 Followers 672 Following

Writer. EIC of Little Thoughts Press (@littlethoughtspress.com) clairemtaylor.com otherthoughts.beehiiv.com đź“ŤBaltimore April and Back Again available now: https://www.publishinggenius.com/catalog/april-and-back-again-by-claire-taylor/

The Corner when they tore down Tiger Stadium, my husband said nothing is sacred but that was before he had children before he discovered how beautifully the soft head of a new life tucks into the corner of his elbow from April and Back Again, by me
midlife by Claire Taylor I wish I could go back hold that girl in my arms & tell her sing your off-key songs the world is deaf to the pleasures of women no one's listening anyway
WHILE MY SON RATTLES ON ABOUT DINOSAURS I CONTEMPLATE THE FUTILITY OF LIFE by Claire Taylor I understand why the Evangelicals are skeptical. These strange feathered beasts. Fanged monsters. Sharp-clawed short-armed freaks. The plesiosaur is technically a marine reptile. The brontosaurus doesn't actually exist. Or maybe it does again? So much has changed in the brief history of my living. So much has stayed the same. Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs at all, my son informs me. The things I thought I knew have been lost to time. I tell him we once owned a machine that rewound VHS tapes; it worked at twice the speed of the VCR. He can't fathom a reason for this device which is how I feel about AR-15s and every vitamin for sale on Instagram. Could a gun kill a dinosaur, he wonders and I try not to picture him shot dead while learning math. I have no idea. Probably yes. Definitely not. I understand so little about evolution and extinction. One thing changing, something else dying away. He asks me how life begins and I speak vaguely of sperm and ovum, some notion of love but he's talking about the world—how did it get here, when will it end. I haven't the energy for science or poetry. To explain how the stars are our kin. Imagine a day when dinosaurs return, our bones drifting in sea-rise graves. They'll talk of God and mysteries. Dust clouds. Intolerable heat. How we mowed each other down. We go back and forth about which dinosaurs are our favorites and I settle on the triceratops because it's one of the few I can remember. He picks one I've never heard of before and I nod along, say that's a good one, though I've already forgotten its name.
Screenshot of a post with way more engagement than it deserves
Two adorable gray and white cats snuggling together on that back of a couch.
Book signing announcement
A box full of copies of April and Back Again
AWP offsite Event flyer, text: Write the Pain Away: An Evening of Rage and Lamentation March 4 at 8pm at The Point in Fells Reading and open mic
A Love Poem I wanted to write you a love poem but I woke up and the ground was still covered in ice, the sky still a sullen gray Not again, I thought I can’t bear another day of this but then there you were pouring the coffee scrambling the eggs looking so much like the promise of spring by Claire Taylor
Poem, text reads: yes, it’s probably because of climate change, but still I like a garden of tulips sprung too soon speckled with ice in February hoping
Photo of a happy me holding up a copy of my book April and Back Again. The cover art depicts an unhappy me.
Photo of my outstretched legs with one kitten snuggled up sleeping against me and another lounging in the background
Photo of a white and gray kitten.
Cover of April and Back Again by Claire Taylor featuring a color pencil and pastel image of a woman's face.
Photo of scattered autumn leaves on a path. Picture includes text from the poem "The Morning After Trump is Reelected, I Think About Time Travel.” Autumn leaves break from their branches and blanket the ground. We crunch their brittle veins beneath our feet. The year slowly edges toward an ending. Time doubles back on itself again and again.
Bag of Shaq gummies
Photo of two pumpkins in a pumpkin patch on a beautiful fall day. Picture includes text from the poem "October (After My Hysterectomy)"
Gorgeous cut dahlias in a white vase.
WHILE MY SON RATTLES ON ABOUT DINOSAURS I CONTEMPLATE THE FUTILITY OF LIFE I understand why the Evangelicals are skeptical. These strange feathered beasts. Fanged monsters. Sharp-clawed short-armed freaks. The plesiosaur is technically a marine reptile. The brontosaurus doesn't actually exist. Or maybe it does again? So much has changed in the brief history of my living. So much has stayed the same. Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs at all, my son informs me. The things I thought I knew have been lost to time. I tell him we once owned a machine that rewound VHS tapes; it worked at twice the speed of the VCR. He can't fathom a reason for this device which is how I feel about AR-15s and every vitamin for sale on Instagram. Could a gun kill a dinosaur, he wonders and I try not to picture him shot dead while learning math. I have no idea. Probably yes. Definitely not. I understand so little about evolution and extinction. One thing changing, something else dying away. He asks me how life begins and I speak vaguely of sperm and ovum, some notion of love but he's talking about the world-how did it get here, when will it end. I haven't the energy for science or poetry. To explain how the stars are our kin. Imagine a day when dinosaurs return, our bones drifting in sea-rise graves. They'll talk of God and mysteries. Dust clouds. Intolerable heat. How we mowed each other down. We go back and forth about which dinosaurs are our favorites and I settle on the triceratops because it's one of the few I can remember. He picks one I've never heard of before and I nod along, say that's a good one, though I've already forgotten its name
Peeling Away by Emily Decker PEELING AWAY I've been leaning against my counter longer than I'd planned. It always happens this way, when I see the mounds heaped at the Saturday market and remember how good the peaches were last summer. The best peaches I've ever had are always last summer's. I buy too many, then wind up here, peeling away and re-looking up hacks like ice baths that never work. What makes the difference anyway between a peach that peels easily and one that doesn't? The ripeness, sure. But could it be its resistance to being skinned and handed to a toddler, or preserved in a blue mason jar, Or stuck in a freezer for the aspirational smoothie? No one wants to be cored to their pit. Still, I resent the slivers of fuzzy skin that cling to more flesh than I want to give.
Photo of the book The Woman’s Part by Jo Gatford
Photo of book Out There in the Dark by Katharine Coldiron
Video of bagpipes playing through the trees on a wooded path in Baltimore.
Photo of the book A Kind of In-Between by Aaron Burch
Photo of my dog happily rolling around in the grass.
Photo of The Size of the Horizon, Or, I Explained Everything to the Trees by Mitchell Nobis, a good book that you should buy.
After the All-Star Break tomatoes straight off the vine sun-ripe and wet as a lover's July skin the day runs its humid tongue up my thigh we are only sweat and angles—exposed elbows, bare knees, sharp anger that hangs heavy in the still night air I read once that on hotter days a pitcher is more likely to hit a batter remind me in October to apologize for how I always pitch it inside aiming straight for your heart
ShĹŤ Poetry Journal number 7 held up in front of a wall of ivy.
HOME RUN CLAIRE TAYLOR After Miguel Cabrera hits his 499th home run I make you guess all the members of the 500 club You take it so seriously Give it more thought than the time You took the job that moved us halfway across the country Without talking to me first But I forgive you; it's a nice life Sitting here, watching you rattle off the first twenty Like it's common knowledge, lips pursed To draw out five more, brows knit to conjure The final two. I stare At the small fold of skin Above the bridge of your nose, the lift In your lip You can do this all day I can do this forever: watch you Like an easy pitch right down the middle Hungry for contact
While My Child Naps I Read a Book in the Sun Claire Taylor and it feels like a rebirth the soul of me sprung from my body like a seedling pushing through earth what good is survival, I ask on the shortest days the darkest nights the answer a faraway echo of birdsong, the robin waking to greet the morning light
Picture of book Women in Baseball: The Forgotten Story by Gai Ingham Berlage
A poem: CLAIRE TAYLOR Tracks he stomps his boots to make footprints runs his trucks- dumper, loader, bulldozer, roller tracks through the fresh snow I follow them out of my darkness, back to where the morning light shines on his smiling face
There is no silver bullet. For the times when your toddler goes full werewolf, you’ll find the internet is loaded with advice and scripts for how to limit tantrums and halt meltdowns. Any of these methods will work some of the time. None of them will work all of the time. But if you’re looking to add to your arsenal of techniques, here’s a helpful script you can try that acknowledges the difficult position your toddler is in while providing a clear directive and opportunity for independence: “You’re very upset. It is so hard being part hellbeast sent to this earthly realm to test my fortitude for the coming apocalypse, but it is time to put on your shoes and socks so that we can go outside. Would you like to wear the blue socks or the red socks?”*
My Father And I Take The Same Antidepressant Christmas is canceled. He's finally making good on that threat- lifting the tree by the trunk with one hand and splashing water out of the stand onto the floor. Later my mother will mop it up with towels and a knowing shake of her head. The limbs are still strung with rainbow lights and covered in ornaments: reflective red orbs, popsicle stick reindeer, handmade paper cutouts framing our smiling school portraits, a bizarre wooden clown that years from now we'll finally throw out having collectively decided it looks vaguely racist. He flings open the door and heaves the tree into the backyard. Ornaments smash and scatter across the grass. Christmas is canceled, he tells us, quietly closing the door. Years from then I tell him "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" is unequivocally the best Christmas song ever. Oh definitely, he agrees. But only the old version. The one about muddling through somehow. Yes, obviously. Of course the muddling through. Yes, obviously we've always had that in common.
Screenshot of Spotify wrapped top song, Timber by Pitbull, Kesha which I was forced to listen to over and over this year.
While my son rattles on about dinosaurs I contemplate the futility of life I understand why the Evangelicals are skeptical. These strange feathered beasts. Fanged monsters. Sharp-clawed short-armed freaks. The plesiosaur is technically a marine reptile. The brontosaurus doesn’t actually exist. Or maybe it does again? So much has changed in the brief history of my living. So much has stayed the same. Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs at all, my son informs me. The things I thought I knew have been lost to time. I tell him we once owned a machine that rewound VHS tapes; it worked at twice the speed of the VCR. He can’t fathom a reason for this device which is how I feel about AR-15s and every vitamin for sale on Instagram. Could a gun kill a dinosaur, he wonders and I try not to picture him shot dead while learning math. I have no idea. Probably yes. Definitely not. I understand so little about evolution and extinction. One thing changing, something else dying away. He asks me how life begins and I speak vaguely of sperm and ovum, some notion of love but he’s talking about the world—how did it get here, when will it end. I haven’t the energy for science or poetry. To explain how the stars are our kin. Imagine a day when dinosaurs return, our bones drifting in sea-rise graves. They’ll talk of God and mysteries. Dust clouds. Intolerable heat. How we mowed each other down. We go back and forth about which dinosaurs are our favorites and I settle on the triceratops because it’s one of the few I can remember. He picks one I’ve never heard of before and I nod along, say that’s a good one, though I’ve already forgotten its name.
Parenting Advice By Claire Taylor I would tell my daughter do not file down your edges don't go soft like the curves of your hips over time become the razor blade instead of the one so easily sliced but I had a son better to be the wound than the bullet I tell him and show him where to place his hand to stop the bleeding
Birthday cake with the number 40 made out of Kit Kat bars
I haven’t fully processed this experience yet. Life is full of before-and-after moments, and many people experience a topsy-turvy blend of relief and sadness when they decide they are done having children or age out of the reproductive portion of their lives; I am not unique in this. But when that shift happens in such a dramatic fashion, to know down to the hour and be given a descriptive summary of when you went from someone who could have a baby to someone who no longer possesses the necessary equipment to do so, it hits a bit different. And when you have to physically heal from that decision, have to look in the mirror to inspect the incisions that have turned your belly into a jack-o-lantern just in time for spooky season… Well, it’s going to take me a little time to work through everything I’m feeling.
a photo of my beautiful cat with some text from my newsletter about him beneath it.
“I’m fine,” I’ve said so many times with tears in my eyes. Over the years, I have been perhaps too honest with my son about my depression and my pain, and the way the two interact. And yet, he doesn’t know the half of it. He doesn’t know how dark my thoughts can get. He doesn’t know that sometimes when he desperately needs to be held, the weight of his body in my lap makes my pelvis feel like it is on fire, makes my insides feel like they might explode. I don’t know what is the right amount to tell your children about your pain, both the physical and psychic kinds. I only know that I am not as good an actor as I would like to be. That when I am asked a question, my tired mind can rarely move fast enough to come up with a decent lie so I just go with the truth, or whatever version of the truth I think my son will understand.
A Beautiful Journey I am willing to contort myself prop up on all fours, drape across the fever heat of his body like a tray table--time for lunch drop my nipple straight into his wild hungry mouth. But he doesn't want me that way. Everything on his own terms how dare I take our private show on the road there's no space to pull over, release, feed, breathe milk and tears pulsing forward while traffic stands still We've seen this stretch of highway countless times just months ago back home for the baby shower tiny pointless shoes soft blankets, stuffed bears cardboard books with handwritten notes Congratulations on beginning life's most beautiful journey! Enjoy the ride! We can make this trip with our eyes closed I have never felt so lost
Photo of page from Stanchion Zine's fifth issue showing the poem, "I Used to Know a Boy With Freckles Like a Starry Sky."
Adorable dog wearing reindeer antlers
Flyer for The Written Womb writing workshop featuring an image of a pregnant woman sitting on a couch with a computer in her lap.
Photo of the magazine The Toy with a sunflower against a green background on the cover
I don’t write poems for the second baby because I am too busy living, watching him watch his older brother This is the poem: the way these boys fell in love as strangers and shimmer together like two stars cutting the same path, burning brighter as they reflect each other’s light -C. Taylor
Watching the Baby Learn to Crawl, I Think About Writing He knows he needs to lift up hands and knees planted head bobbing forward but these pieces come one at a time the connections are not all there yet he is still formulating thinking There is a point in the distance (a red ball) he wants to reach, but when he lunges for it he only sends himself backward pushing away, the distance growing alongside his frustration It’s so hard, I tell him It’s so hard but you’ll get there -C. Taylor
Square photo of a campfire with text Retreat: A new poem and revisiting some favorite fiction.
Square photo of a path through trees overlayed with text of an excerpt from One Good Thing.
Photo of a stack of copies of my chapbook One Good Thing. The book cover is rainbow drawn with sidewalk chalk.
Contest badge featuring Drawing of a smiling raccoon against a starry sky. Text reads From Trash To Treasure.
Book cover for One Good Thing: a rainbow drawn with sidewalk chalk.