Claire Taylor
LightNews LightNews
banner
clairemtaylor.com
Claire Taylor
@clairemtaylor.com
2K followers 660 following 730 posts
Writer. Founding editor of Little Thoughts Press (@littlethoughtspress.com)

clairemtaylor.com
otherthoughts.beehiiv.com

📍Baltimore

Chapbook One Good Thing available from Bottlecap Press

https://bottlecap.press/products/one
Posts Replies Media Videos
clairemtaylor.com
Politics is a constantly repeating cycle of frustration & disappointment. Hang in there. Go read a book. Find something beautiful. Take care of your community.

(from “The Morning After Trump is Reelected, I Think About Time Travel” in my debut collection, April & Back Again, coming Feb ‘26)
Photo of scattered autumn leaves on a path. Picture includes text from the poem "The Morning After Trump is Reelected, I Think About Time Travel.” Autumn leaves break from their branches and blanket the ground. We crunch their brittle veins beneath our feet. The year slowly edges toward an ending. Time doubles back on itself again and again.
November 10, 2025 at 8:07 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Truly can’t get over this Halloween candy I picked up today. Hard to believe this bag was only $3.99.
Bag of Shaq gummies
October 24, 2025 at 12:13 AM
clairemtaylor.com
My debut poetry collection, April and Back Again, is coming Feb 24th, 2026, from @pubgen.bsky.social!

You can get a peek at the vibes by reading "October (After My Hysterectomy)" in the Fall issue of @whaleroadreview.bsky.social.

www.whaleroadreview.com/taylor-5/
Photo of two pumpkins in a pumpkin patch on a beautiful fall day. Picture includes text from the poem "October (After My Hysterectomy)"
October 21, 2025 at 6:43 PM
clairemtaylor.com
The world may be hot garbage but my dahlias are tremendous.
Gorgeous cut dahlias in a white vase. My hand holding a bunch of beautiful dahlias
October 11, 2025 at 9:25 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Very excited to receive a Best of the Net nomination for my poem about dinosaurs & existential dread.

Huge thanks to the editors of DMQ Review for being such fans and champions of this piece!
WHILE MY SON RATTLES ON ABOUT DINOSAURS I CONTEMPLATE THE FUTILITY OF LIFE I understand why the Evangelicals are skeptical. These strange feathered beasts. Fanged monsters. Sharp-clawed short-armed freaks. The plesiosaur is technically a marine reptile. The brontosaurus doesn't actually exist. Or maybe it does again? So much has changed in the brief history of my living. So much has stayed the same. Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs at all, my son informs me. The things I thought I knew have been lost to time. I tell him we once owned a machine that rewound VHS tapes; it worked at twice the speed of the VCR. He can't fathom a reason for this device which is how I feel about AR-15s and every vitamin for sale on Instagram. Could a gun kill a dinosaur, he wonders and I try not to picture him shot dead while learning math. I have no idea. Probably yes. Definitely not. I understand so little about evolution and extinction. One thing changing, something else dying away. He asks me how life begins and I speak vaguely of sperm and ovum, some notion of love but he's talking about the world-how did it get here, when will it end. I haven't the energy for science or poetry. To explain how the stars are our kin. Imagine a day when dinosaurs return, our bones drifting in sea-rise graves. They'll talk of God and mysteries. Dust clouds. Intolerable heat. How we mowed each other down. We go back and forth about which dinosaurs are our favorites and I settle on the triceratops because it's one of the few I can remember. He picks one I've never heard of before and I nod along, say that's a good one, though I've already forgotten its name
September 25, 2025 at 3:23 PM
clairemtaylor.com
"No one wants to be cored to their pit."

This whole book is a beauty.

Homing: Poems, by Emily Decker from @yellowarrowpub.bsky.social

#smallpressseptember
Peeling Away by Emily Decker PEELING AWAY I've been leaning against my counter longer than I'd planned. It always happens this way, when I see the mounds heaped at the Saturday market and remember how good the peaches were last summer. The best peaches I've ever had are always last summer's. I buy too many, then wind up here, peeling away and re-looking up hacks like ice baths that never work. What makes the difference anyway between a peach that peels easily and one that doesn't? The ripeness, sure. But could it be its resistance to being skinned and handed to a toddler, or preserved in a blue mason jar, Or stuck in a freezer for the aspirational smoothie? No one wants to be cored to their pit. Still, I resent the slivers of fuzzy skin that cling to more flesh than I want to give. The book Homing: Poems by Emily Decker
September 19, 2025 at 4:29 PM
clairemtaylor.com
This whole book is brilliant.

The Woman’s Part by Jo Gatford from @stanchion.bsky.social.

#smallpressseptember
Photo of the book The Woman’s Part by Jo Gatford Highlighted text from The Woman’s Part by Jo Gatford. “The problem with wars is there are too many sons in them. Too many mothers left waiting, praying those other mothers are the ones left weeping.”
September 12, 2025 at 1:50 PM
clairemtaylor.com
This book is fantastic! I'm not much of a film buff even & I still loved this. So sharp, well crafted, absolutely fascinating. I want to shove it into everyone's hands & shout "Read this! Read this!" So yeah, read this.

@autofocusbooks.bsky.social
@ferrifrigida.bsky.social

#smallpressseptember
Photo of book Out There in the Dark by Katharine Coldiron
September 10, 2025 at 5:06 PM
clairemtaylor.com
The other day on this same extensive wooded trail in the middle of the city, my toddler and I heard someone playing bagpipes through the trees and went in search of the source. Truly delightful.
September 1, 2025 at 12:59 AM
clairemtaylor.com
Really enjoyed this collection by @aaronburch.bsky.social from @autofocusbooks.bsky.social

The thinking about how you’re going to tell the story while you’re still in the middle of living the story is deeply relatable.
Photo of the book A Kind of In-Between by Aaron Burch
August 21, 2025 at 5:19 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Trees, clouds, a happy dog, and three days of focused writing to finish the first draft of this damn novel. Let’s do this.
Photo of my dog happily rolling around in the grass.
July 17, 2025 at 8:12 PM
clairemtaylor.com
This is very, very good, y’all.

@mitchnobis.bsky.social
@matchfactoryeds.bsky.social
Photo of The Size of the Horizon, Or, I Explained Everything to the Trees by Mitchell Nobis, a good book that you should buy.
July 14, 2025 at 5:06 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Home Run Derby tonight. All-Star game tomorrow.

Time to remind yourself that you don't actually hate the people you love, it's just too damn hot to put up with their crap.

This poem (1st published in @moistpoetryjournal.bsky.social) is part of my upcoming collection from @pubgen.bsky.social.
After the All-Star Break tomatoes straight off the vine sun-ripe and wet as a lover's July skin the day runs its humid tongue up my thigh we are only sweat and angles—exposed elbows, bare knees, sharp anger that hangs heavy in the still night air I read once that on hotter days a pitcher is more likely to hit a batter remind me in October to apologize for how I always pitch it inside aiming straight for your heart
July 14, 2025 at 3:02 PM
clairemtaylor.com
This is such a beautiful print journal! Thanks so much to the editors of @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social for including my poem in this issue alongside so many talented poets and incredible pieces.

This piece is included in my collection that will be published next year by @pubgen.bsky.social.
Shō Poetry Journal number 7 held up in front of a wall of ivy. Poem Text: While playing two hours of Chutes and Ladders I contemplate the futility of life CLAIRE TAYLOR We can’t win. One of us reaches the top and then rolls a three and there’s that fucking chute again, the long one that takes you all the way back down to the bottom, like starting the whole game over. Roll move fall. Roll move fall. I lay awake all night not finishing this poem in my head. I lay awake all night imagining my own death. Rumor had it a boy who lived down the road from me drowned in front of his friends. He dove head-first into the river and never came up. They stood and waited, watched as the water’s surface smoothed into a tomb. At the time I asked my mother what it would feel like to drown but she didn’t know—like falling asleep, perhaps. Now I am the mother and I don’t have any answers either. Roll move fall. Roll move fall. I am back at the bottom of the board. All it takes is a little luck to find a different ending. A new series of numbers. Four instead of three and suddenly it’s over. I picture a body bloated with silt. A mother choking on grief. I lay awake all night counting my breaths.
July 3, 2025 at 3:30 PM
clairemtaylor.com
It’s Opening Day & I desperately need a break from the news so let’s do a thread of baseball pieces!

Here’s one of mine originally published in @underreviewlit.bsky.social
HOME RUN CLAIRE TAYLOR After Miguel Cabrera hits his 499th home run I make you guess all the members of the 500 club You take it so seriously Give it more thought than the time You took the job that moved us halfway across the country Without talking to me first But I forgive you; it's a nice life Sitting here, watching you rattle off the first twenty Like it's common knowledge, lips pursed To draw out five more, brows knit to conjure The final two. I stare At the small fold of skin Above the bridge of your nose, the lift In your lip You can do this all day I can do this forever: watch you Like an easy pitch right down the middle Hungry for contact
March 27, 2025 at 12:10 PM
clairemtaylor.com
This poem was originally published in @paddlerpress.bsky.social back in 2022 but since I went ahead and had another kid since then, it still applies today.
While My Child Naps I Read a Book in the Sun Claire Taylor and it feels like a rebirth the soul of me sprung from my body like a seedling pushing through earth what good is survival, I ask on the shortest days the darkest nights the answer a faraway echo of birdsong, the robin waking to greet the morning light
March 11, 2025 at 4:38 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Starting some research for a novel idea that’s been kicking around in my head for the last three years.
Picture of book Women in Baseball: The Forgotten Story by Gai Ingham Berlage
February 28, 2025 at 6:24 PM
clairemtaylor.com
An old poem (originally published in Doghouse Press) but one that is bringing me a bit of comfort as my household fights through a nasty cold while also watching the world crumble.
A poem: CLAIRE TAYLOR Tracks he stomps his boots to make footprints runs his trucks- dumper, loader, bulldozer, roller tracks through the fresh snow I follow them out of my darkness, back to where the morning light shines on his smiling face
February 6, 2025 at 2:49 PM
clairemtaylor.com
In today's newsletter, as I head into a new round of parenting a toddler, I'm sharing a little advice on how best to manage these tricky toddler years.

otherthoughts.beehiiv.com/p/much-two-m...
There is no silver bullet. For the times when your toddler goes full werewolf, you’ll find the internet is loaded with advice and scripts for how to limit tantrums and halt meltdowns. Any of these methods will work some of the time. None of them will work all of the time. But if you’re looking to add to your arsenal of techniques, here’s a helpful script you can try that acknowledges the difficult position your toddler is in while providing a clear directive and opportunity for independence: “You’re very upset. It is so hard being part hellbeast sent to this earthly realm to test my fortitude for the coming apocalypse, but it is time to put on your shoes and socks so that we can go outside. Would you like to wear the blue socks or the red socks?”*
January 21, 2025 at 5:18 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Who's got holiday poems? I want to read them.

Here's one of mine that was initially published a few years back in Second Chance Lit.
My Father And I Take The Same Antidepressant Christmas is canceled. He's finally making good on that threat- lifting the tree by the trunk with one hand and splashing water out of the stand onto the floor. Later my mother will mop it up with towels and a knowing shake of her head. The limbs are still strung with rainbow lights and covered in ornaments: reflective red orbs, popsicle stick reindeer, handmade paper cutouts framing our smiling school portraits, a bizarre wooden clown that years from now we'll finally throw out having collectively decided it looks vaguely racist. He flings open the door and heaves the tree into the backyard. Ornaments smash and scatter across the grass. Christmas is canceled, he tells us, quietly closing the door. Years from then I tell him "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" is unequivocally the best Christmas song ever. Oh definitely, he agrees. But only the old version. The one about muddling through somehow. Yes, obviously. Of course the muddling through. Yes, obviously we've always had that in common.
December 12, 2024 at 4:14 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Guess my weirdo toddler’s favorite song.
Screenshot of Spotify wrapped top song, Timber by Pitbull, Kesha which I was forced to listen to over and over this year.
December 5, 2024 at 9:29 PM
clairemtaylor.com
Here's the poem if you'd like to give it a read.
While my son rattles on about dinosaurs I contemplate the futility of life I understand why the Evangelicals are skeptical. These strange feathered beasts. Fanged monsters. Sharp-clawed short-armed freaks. The plesiosaur is technically a marine reptile. The brontosaurus doesn’t actually exist. Or maybe it does again? So much has changed in the brief history of my living. So much has stayed the same. Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs at all, my son informs me. The things I thought I knew have been lost to time. I tell him we once owned a machine that rewound VHS tapes; it worked at twice the speed of the VCR. He can’t fathom a reason for this device which is how I feel about AR-15s and every vitamin for sale on Instagram. Could a gun kill a dinosaur, he wonders and I try not to picture him shot dead while learning math. I have no idea. Probably yes. Definitely not. I understand so little about evolution and extinction. One thing changing, something else dying away. He asks me how life begins and I speak vaguely of sperm and ovum, some notion of love but he’s talking about the world—how did it get here, when will it end. I haven’t the energy for science or poetry. To explain how the stars are our kin. Imagine a day when dinosaurs return, our bones drifting in sea-rise graves. They’ll talk of God and mysteries. Dust clouds. Intolerable heat. How we mowed each other down. We go back and forth about which dinosaurs are our favorites and I settle on the triceratops because it’s one of the few I can remember. He picks one I’ve never heard of before and I nod along, say that’s a good one, though I’ve already forgotten its name.
December 3, 2024 at 6:25 PM
clairemtaylor.com
This is the one I have had the most people reach out to me about. Originally published in @literarymama.bsky.social.
Parenting Advice By Claire Taylor I would tell my daughter do not file down your edges don't go soft like the curves of your hips over time become the razor blade instead of the one so easily sliced but I had a son better to be the wound than the bullet I tell him and show him where to place his hand to stop the bleeding
November 23, 2024 at 2:31 PM
clairemtaylor.com
My son decided he would handle decorating the cake for my husband’s 40th. Totally nailed it.
Birthday cake with the number 40 made out of Kit Kat bars
November 17, 2024 at 12:43 AM
clairemtaylor.com
Wrote a bit about my surgery & how saying farewell to my uterus has coincided with letting go of some of my ambitions & the stress of striving. It's complicated & confusing, but I'm feeling less pressure from a variety of sources & that's a good thing.

otherthoughts.beehiiv.com/p/goodbye-gr...
I haven’t fully processed this experience yet. Life is full of before-and-after moments, and many people experience a topsy-turvy blend of relief and sadness when they decide they are done having children or age out of the reproductive portion of their lives; I am not unique in this. But when that shift happens in such a dramatic fashion, to know down to the hour and be given a descriptive summary of when you went from someone who could have a baby to someone who no longer possesses the necessary equipment to do so, it hits a bit different. And when you have to physically heal from that decision, have to look in the mirror to inspect the incisions that have turned your belly into a jack-o-lantern just in time for spooky season… Well, it’s going to take me a little time to work through everything I’m feeling.
October 10, 2024 at 8:18 PM