Taylor Mali

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Taylor Mali
Taylor Mali at the international school in Stockholm
Born	March 28, 1965 (1965-03-28) (age 44) New York, NY, USA
Occupation	Poet, Teacher, Voice Actor
Nationality	USA
Literary movement	Slam Poetry
Notable work(s)	What Learning Leaves
Spouse(s)	Marie-Elizabeth Mundheim
Influences Billy Collins, Saul Williams, Walt Whitman, Rives, Mary Oliver, and Naomi Shihab Nye
Official website

Taylor Mali (born 28 March 1965) is an American slam poet, teacher and voiceover artist.

Contents 1 Life 2 Poetry 3 Teaching 4 Published Works 4.1 Books 4.2 Audio CDs 4.3 Anthologies 4.4 CD Anthologies 4.5 Narration 5 Awards 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 8.1 YouTube videos

[edit] Life

A 10th-generation native of New York City, Taylor Mali graduated from the Collegiate School, a private school for boys, in 1983. He received a B.A. in English from Bowdoin College in 1987 and an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Kansas State University in 1993. He also studied drama with the Royal Shakespeare Academy at Oxford. One of four children, his mother was children's book author Jane L. Mali^[1], a recipient of the American Book Award, and his father was H. Allen Mali, vice president of Henry W.T. Mali & Co., manufacturers of pool table coverings. He is the great-great-grandson of John Taylor Johnston, founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1993, he married Rebecca Ruth Tauber, who died in 2004. On May 13, 2006 he married Marie-Elizabeth Mundheim^[2], a high school friend.

[edit] Poetry

As a slam poetry performer, Taylor Mali has been on seven National Poetry Slam teams; six appeared on the finals stage and four won the competition (1996 with Team Providence; 1997, 2000 and 2002 with Team NYC-Urbana). Mali is the author of What Learning Leaves, has recorded four CDs, and is included in various anthologies. Poets who have influenced him include Billy Collins, Saul Williams, Walt Whitman, Rives, Mary Oliver, and Naomi Shihab Nye. He is perhaps best known for the poem "What Teachers Make."

He appeared in Taylor Mali & Friends Live at the Bowery Poetry Club and the documentaries "SlamNation" (1997) and "Slam Planet" (2006). He was also in the HBO production, "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry," which won a Peabody Award in 2003. Taylor Mali is the former president of Poetry Slam Incorporated, and he has performed with such renowned poets as Billy Collins and Allen Ginsberg. Although he retired from the National Poetry Slam competition in 2005.^[3], he still helps curate NYC-Urbana Poetry Series, held weekly at the Bowery Poetry Club.

[edit] Teaching

Taylor Mali spent nine years teaching English, history, and math, including stints at Browning School, a boys school on the Upper East Side of New York City, and Cape Cod Academy, a k-12 private school on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He now lectures and conducts workshops for teachers and students all over the world. In 2001 Taylor Mali used a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts to develop the one-man show "Teacher! Teacher!" about poetry, teaching, and math. He is a strong advocate for the nobility of teaching and in 2000 he set out to create 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, perseverance, or passion." As of June 1, 2009, he has 335^[4].

[edit] Published Works

[edit] Books

• What Learning Leaves, 2002 - ISBN 1887012176

[edit] Audio CDs

• The Difference Between Left & Wrong, 1995
• Poems from the Like Free Zone, 2000
• Conviction, 2003
• Icarus Airlines, 2007

[edit] Anthologies

Collections in which Taylor Mali's work is included

• Poetry on Stage: At the Red Barn Theatre, Key West, 1995 ISBN 9781888036008
• Poetry Nation: The North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry, 1998, ISBN 1550651129
• Will Work For Peace: New Political Poems, 1999, ISBN 096664591X
• Bearing Witness, 2001, ISBN 9781569761304
• Freedom to Speak Anthology, 2002, ISBN 1893972070
• The Spoken Word Revolution 2003, ISBN 9781402200373

[edit] CD Anthologies

Collections in which Taylor Mali's work is included

• Attack of the Urbanabots (The Wordsmith Press, 2007)
• New High Score (The Wordsmith Press, 2004)
• Writers Week IX (WWIX, 2004)
• Best of Urbana 2003 (The Wordsmith Press, 2003)
• The Kerfuffle Incident: Best of the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam (KPS, 2003)
• Urbana: Bowery Poetry Club (The Wordsmith Press, 2002)
• Freedom to Speak Anthology(CD) (The Wordsmith Press, 2002)
• Spoken Word Underground (The Wordsmith Press, 2001)
• NYC Slams (Anthology) (PoetCD, 2000)

[edit] Narration

• American Fairy Tales, audiobook, 1998
• Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, audiobook, 2000
• Hope Along the Wind: The Story of Harry Hay, documentary, 2002
• Blizzard!, audiobook, 2003
• The Great Fire, audiobook, 2003
• Revenge of the Whale, audiobook, 2005
• ESCAPE! The Story of the Great Houdini, audiobook, 2006
• Close To Shore, audiobook, 2007

[edit] Awards

• 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002 - National Poetry Slam winning team
• 2001 - U. S. Comedy Arts Festival jury prize for best solo performance, "Teacher! Teacher!"
• 2003 - AudioFile Earphones Award for The Great Fire.

[edit] See also

• Performance poetry
• Poetry slam
• Spoken word
• Voice acting
• Bowery Poetry Club

[edit] References

• Review of The Great Fire, AudioFile Magazine, Jun/Jul 2003
• Slam Poet's Muse is Teaching, Stacey Hollenbeck, Teacher Magazine, July 18 2007
• Day Job: Teacher, Night Job: Poet, Instructor, Sep/Oct 2007, Vol. 117 Issue 2, p.9

[edit] External links

• Taylor Mali - official web site
• Taylor Mali at the Internet Movie Database
• Taylor Mali profile, Famecast web site
• Podcasts of poems
• Watch Taylor Mali recite his poems at Open-Door Poetry
• Audio of "What Teachers Make," "Like Lilly Like Wilson," "The Entire Act of Sorrow," "Depression Too Is a Kind of Fire," "Holding Your Position," "For the Life of Me," and "How To Write a Political Poem" (among others) on Indiefeed Performance Poetry Channel

[edit] YouTube videos

Mali posts videos on his channel at YouTube [1] of his own and other performances:

• Like You Know at YouTube
• What Teachers Make at YouTube
• The Impotence of Proofreading at YouTube
• Like Lilly Like Wilson at YouTube

also see taylormali.com