What Learning Leaves [Unknown format] [Paperback]

Taylor Mali (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002 | ISBN-10: 1887012176 | ISBN-13: 978-1887012171

A collection of poems about teaching, love, and dogs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Mali is a ranting comic showman and a literary provocateur. -- The New York Times

Taylor Mali speaks of the world of the teacher with power and grace. His voice is our voice. -- Michele Forman, 2001 National Teacher of the Year

About the Author

A passionate teacher and enthusiastic proponent of performance poetry, Taylor Mali is the only person to have won the national poetry slam championship three times. He has been featured twice on the HBO series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry."

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Hanover Press (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887012176
• ISBN-13: 978-1887012171
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement. He is one of the few people in the world to have no job other than that of "poet." Articulate, accessible, passionate, and downright funny, Mali studied drama in Oxford with members of The Royal Shakespeare Company and puts those skills of presentation to work in all his performances. He was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry and was the "Armani-clad villain" of Paul Devlin's 1997 documentary film SlamNation.

Born in New York City into a family some of whose members have lived there since the early 1600s, Taylor Mali is an unapologetic WASP, making him a rare entity in spoken word, which is often considered to be an art form influenced by the inner city and dominated either by poets of color or otherwise imbued with the spirit of hip-hop.

Mali is vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world and has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, and perseverance."

He is the author of two books of poetry, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What Learning Leaves (Hanover 2002), and four CDs of spoken word. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop "Teacher! Teacher!" a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best solo performance at the 2001 U. S. Comedy Arts Festival.

Formerly president of Poetry Slam Incorporated, the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, Taylor Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist these days, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops as well as doing occasional commercial voiceover work. He has narrated several books on tape, including "The Great Fire" (for which he won the Golden Earphones Award for children's narration).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars it leaves me flabbergasted, September 23, 2008

By 

Scandalous Sanity (Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: What Learning Leaves (Paperback)

I find it rather difficult to adequately describe Taylor Mali's book, What Learning Leaves. How can a reader poetically describe a poet? I'm not sure one can, so I'll leave the poetical language to Mr. Mali.

I recently learned about the Poetry Slam scene, and it has fascinated me. The power of the spoken word ignites within me a fire that is unquenched by mere penmanship, and I'm sure you would be the same after you hear a poet slam a poem out. Taylor Mali is one of the best, and simply reading his work gives me a whole new respect for him.

The theme of the majority of his poems is education, which include What Teachers Make, Like Lilly Like Wilson, and First Day of School. But he also explores love, grief, and everydayness. While these are different for me, because I've only heard/seen his educational related poems, they still have a tone of authority that demands one see that there is something in these things to be learned as well. It's really beautiful.

While Mali is primarily known as a performance poet, he shows off his superb writing skills, as well as uncanny wit, in some of the poems included in this collection. These include On the removal of the antonym section, Poet teaching Math and History, and The the impotence of proofreading. All of these are hilarious even if you never hear Mali perform them. (I always enjoy watching people laugh while reading because I'm sure somewhere somebody who sticks to the "dumb box" is upset that they cannot have the same pleasure)

I would recommend this book to anybody. It will open them up to poetry in general, as well as the Slam Poetry scene. And, personally, I think it's time we place a little more importance on the arts. When a person can inform, educate, and entertain in the way that Mali does people will listen and be in awe. Although, I will say that I am a bit biased, I majored in Literature so I see the complexity of his poems on paper and as they are performed by him, but anybody can appreciate the these poems collected in this work. What you learn from Taylor Mali will leave you flabbergasted.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taylor Mali's Greatest Hits, July 6, 2007

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: What Learning Leaves (Paperback)

This book collects the high points from the career of performance poet Taylor Mali. All his classics are here: What Teachers Make, Like Lilly Like Wilson, Playing Scrabble With Eddie. Many of his other poems in this book have a narrower audience, but are probably already well known if you consciously follow the performance poetry scene. This volume was published in 2002, so more recent show-stoppers like How to Write a Political Poem aren't in here; however, the poems that made his name in the 1990's are pretty much all here.

The largest section of this book is comprised of poems on teaching. These are the books that made Mali famous, of course. But there is also a section of surprisingly touching love poems and a section on loss and grief. Because these poems mostly lack his trademark goofy wit, they lack the legendary following of his most famous poems, but they arguably translate better to the page, and reflect a lesser known side of the renowned poetry jokester.

Not all of these performance poems seamlessly translate to the page. What Teachers Make, for instance, requires parenthetical notes for clarification. And some of the short poems, like Gene Pool and Because My Students Asked Me, seem abrupt and corny. It's almost worth more to regard these poems as scripts for a theatrical performance than to see them as poems like Eliot and Ginsberg would have written. But they are still entertaining and instructive to read.

This book is great for fans of Taylor Mali, lovers of slam poetry, or as a gift for anybody who says no one is writing good poetry these days. I've read dark fingerprints into the pages of my volume. You will probably read your copy to pieces. It's that good.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb!, February 27, 2006

By 

T. Garcia - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Learning Leaves (Paperback)

I have been searching for this book for a while, it's out of print and Amazon was the only one who carried it. Great condition, fast delivery, and of course the book is just excellent. As an aspiring teacher it speaks to a place in my heart that I hold in deep passion. Mali's words are fully expressive on what it means to be an educator.