My fifth poetry collection, Weather, is a book of small poems, mostly haiku. The book is a continuation of my 2016 collection, The News, for which I wrote 36 poems, one per week through my wife’s pregnancy with our first child. For Weather I wrote 156 poems, one per week through the first three years of life of our second child. It was published by Gaspereau Press in May 2024.
From the book jacket description:
“Living with his wife and young children in a small apartment during the pandemic lockdown, Rob Taylor developed a habit of retreating to the wooded fringes of a nearby walking trail with a camping chair to do his work. “I needed that space in order to edit the writing of others,” writes Taylor, “but when time allowed I waited in that quiet, that wind and birdsong, for haiku.” A companion to his poetry collection The News, Taylor’s Weather was written over the first three years of his daughter’s life, chronicling the accumulative effect of intimacy and contemplation and reveling in the “small moments out of which we assemble our lives.”
Poems in Weather have appeared, or are forthcoming, in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The Fiddlehead, Event, Frogpond, The Literary Review of Canada, Modern Haiku, Best Canadian Poetry 2024 and Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees.
I wrote about my move towards writing haiku in an essay for The Tyee (originally published in Event).
I also wrote an essay about writing the haiku in Weather for The Woodlot. That essay was later republished by the Poetry Society of New Zealand.
Sample Poems
Five Haiku
The Creek
Sunlight
Wawa
The Blue Octopus
Reviews
“[Taylor] masterfully navigates the confines of highly compressed poetry to bring the reader to a series of revelations, often astonishing and even heart-wrenching… These poems urged me to continue cultivating an awe and respect for the art of the haiku. Perhaps the greatest gift a poet can give its reader is more than an appreciation for their work, but also for the craft.”
– Nicholas Selig, The Miramichi Reader
“While there can be chaos outside, if we can find that stillness inside—through the strength and elegance of beautifully crafted haiku, even—perhaps we will also find some solace and respite. Everything offers us a glimpse of wonder and beauty if we pay proper attention each day, and Taylor’s work—especially in these chaotic times—offers a few moments of peace.”
– Kim Fahner, Periodicities
“Weather… is one of the best, most affecting, and wisest collections of contemporary haiku that I have yet come across.”
– Emily Hancock, St Brigid Press
Other Media
Essay in The Tyee
Essay in The Woodlot
Interview in The Hamilton Review of Books
Interview with CBC’s North by Northwest
Profile in The Tri-Cities Dispatch
Purchase Weather
At Your Local Bookstore!
Gaspereau Press Website
If you want a copy soon, and signed, come to one of my upcoming readings and purchase one in person!