In an interview with the New York Times, poet Tess Taylor was asked to describe how a poem begins to take shape. “Sometimes as a title,” she responded. “Sometimes as a rhythm.” For her 2016 collection Work & Days, poems began as the result of her time spent planting, weeding and turning compost as an intern on a farm in the Berkshires. In the 28-poem cycle, the wordsmith digs into themes of season, self, food and place in the context of 21st-century chaos. Taylor shares her gift for verse as part of the University of Vermont Fleming Museum of Art’s Painted Word Poetry Series.
