Captive Voices - (Southern Messenger Poets) by Eleanor Ross Taylor (Paperback)

About the Book

Over a fifty-year career, Eleanor Ross Taylor has established herself as one of the foremost southern poets of her generation. Captive Voices gathers selections from her five previous books along with a generous helping of new poems, to present poems ranging from contemporary pieces about a bag lady on a bus, to intensely personal poems about her dislike for her grandmother and worries about her son. The title poema real tour de forceexplores the notion of captivity on several levels as it speaks to the suffering we all endure, some of which is of our own making. Decidedly regional yet determinedly universal, this remarkable volume, along with a foreword by Ellen Bryant Voigt, attests to the singular talent of a woman described as a poet of genius.

Book Synopsis

Over nearly fifty years, Eleanor Ross Taylor has established herself as one of the foremost southern poets of her generation. Captive Voices gathers selections from Taylor's five previous books along with a generous helping of new poems. Scintillating, unusual, passionate, and profound, the poems range from contemporary pieces about a bag lady on a bus, to historical pieces about settlers held hostage and a wartime nurse caring for British wounded, to intensely personal poems about her dislike for her grandmother and worries about her son. The title poem -- a real tour de force -- explores the notion of captivity on several levels as it speaks to the suffering we all endure, some of which is of our own making. Decidedly regional yet determinedly universal, the poems in this remarkable volume, along with a foreword by Ellen Bryant Voigt, attest to the singular talent of a woman justly described as "a poet of genius."

About the Author

Eleanor Ross Taylor is the author of five previous volumes of poetry, including Wilderness of Ladies, Days Going/Days Coming Back, and Late Leisure. The recipient of the Shelley Memorial Prize awarded by the Poetry Society of America, the Library of Virginia's Virginia Prize for Poetry, and the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, she lives in Virginia.