Heather Taylor

Bio:

Heather Taylor is a Canadian poet, playwright & educator, who is a regular on the London poetry scene where she displays her natural ability to reach out to an audience. Her writing has been published throughout Europe & North America & she has been a host on Resonance FM & Sound Radio with guest slots on CKUA (Edmonton), CKUF (Victoria) & BBC London Radio. Her full collection horizon & back was published by Tall Lighthouse in October 2005.

She studied music, acting and writing in western Canada. After working on over 30 film and theatre productions both onstage and off, Heather began performing her own solo work in Vancouver and co-produced the multimedia showcase Skidrow Theatre with Silent Productions. In January 2002, Heather pulled up stakes and moved to London, England. Since arriving in the UK, she has been a featured performer at Borders, Poetry Café, Book Slam, RADA, Camberwell Arts Festival, Harrow Festival, Runnymede International Literature Festival, and Glastonbury. She has also performed at the Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol) and Guardian Newsroom as part of the Remember Saro-Wiwa.

Heather has toured the 2-woman poetry and music show, Accents on Words. It was launched at the poetry café in London in November 2005 and has since been performed at a number of venues, including The British Library with BBC Radio London, BAC with Apples and Snakes, The Aran Islands (Ireland) and will be taken to India with the British Council in February 2007.

Mannix and Taylor’s repertoire is aurally gorgeous; their voices perfectly matched as they inter-splice their respective poetry. Visually it’s arresting too; sometimes it’s formal and dramatic, with fragments of verse spoken in syncopation and graceful, choreographed movement. Other times it’s like having your two big sisters having a comfortable conversation. They bounce words and ideas off each other incessantly, a fabulous repartee of wisecracks that leavens the underlying pathos of memory and loss that many of the poems tonight have dealt with.
-Sean Merrigan, Spoiled Ink

What people are saying about her:

Heather Taylor maps an image-rich world with a voice that is fresh, tough & hard to ignore. This is strong, brazen writing that lives on & off the page.
-Todd Swift

Her work is humble and reassuring, gentle and generous ...
-Patrick Neate, Whitbread Award winning author of 12 Bar Blues

Edgy, sophisticated wordsmith, feeding the mind as well as the heart.
-Kindred Spirit

Heather Taylor's poetry is witty, gentle and generous with a sleek sensual edge that hides a wicked tongue.
-poetry&words, Glastonbury Festival

"Line Dancing" poem in Serbia

Member Since:

January 20, 2007

Sounds Like:

A glint-in-your eye-crack-me-up in the vein of Jan Arden meets Joni Mitchell. -John Stiles, Writers on Writing

Record Label:

Tall Lighthouse