Poet Sam Taylor in a gray suite, standing in a colonnade.
Sam Taylor is a U.S. poet and word-based artist whose practice ranges from traditional and experimental poem-making to work that marries poetic craft with visual and spatial elements. He is the author of two books of poems, Body of the World (2005) and Nude Descending an Empire (2014).  Born and raised in Miami, Florida, Taylor earned a BA from Swarthmore College and is a graduate of both the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia. For several years, he was a caretaker for a remote wilderness refuge that was deserted and snowed-in during the winter, without phone, electricity, or internet: an experience that proved enormously formative to the vision in his work.  His work most frequently explores themes of mysticism, sexuality, ecology, politics, suffering, and the mystery of the world.  
 
Taylor is the recipient of many awards, including the 2014-2015 Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, the Dobie Paisano Award, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, the James Michener Fellowship, and numerous residencies.  He is currently an assistant professor in the MFA program at Wichita State University, where he teaches workshops and courses in poetic craft, modern and contemporary poetics, and ecology.