Befitting the position she holds, the question "What is a poem supposed to be?" is one that Marilyn L. Taylor, Wisconsin's state poet laureate, has seriously considered.

She has an easy answer, but it's one about which she also is adamant: Poems are supposed to be accessible.

"I think my No. 1 issue with contemporary poetry is much of it is obscure and much of it doesn't address the reader and I find that inexcusable," she said.

That doesn't mean a poem must be simple, however: "A little ambiguity is fine because it's OK to have to work," Taylor added.

But some poets lose sight of who they're writing for. Readers should be willing to read a poem two or three times, "but if it takes four or five times (to understand a poem), then there's something wrong with the poet and something wrong with the poetry."

She strives to make her own poems accessible, adding, "I think some of my poems cause a person to think a little bit harder about the topic because I hope to have delved into it a little more deeply."

Her topics range from "the little quirks of human nature" to dramatic monologues. Her poems are not autobiographical but she feels like "a portion of each of them is me."

Taylor became a poet in a "sideways" manner, she said. After graduating from Madison West High School and UW-Madison, she worked in Chicago in marketing and publicity jobs. Then she went to graduate school in linguistics at UW-Milwaukee. A creative writing class there eventually led to a Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in creative writing and poetry.

She was an adjunct professor at UW-Milwaukee for 15 years and has been widely published as a poet. Taylor was poet laureate of Milwaukee in 2004 and 2005, and since January she has been the state's poet laureate, a two-year position appointed by the governor. It is unpaid, though the state pays for food and travel expenses. Some of the groups who invite her to conduct workshops or readings offer an honorarium.

Poetry's accessibility is a message she incorporates into her current position, which involves a lot of travel, often to small communities where she conducts readings and workshops.

"I enjoy reading my poetry to people ... and I think I'm well qualified to spread the word about it. I feel great enthusiasm for the art form," she said.

And she's found that many of the people she meets and works with have a message for her. There is an interest in and need for art, especially in smaller communities.

"I've met so many wonderful people across the state," she said, with an "honest, sincere and deep interest in the arts, (and) poetry in particular."

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The Geniuses Among Us

They take us by surprise, these tall perennials

that jut like hollyhocks above the canopy

of all the rest of us - bright testimonials

to the scale of human possibility.

They come to bloom for every generation,

blazing with extraordinary notions

from the taproots of imagination -

dazzling us with incandescent visions.

And soon, the things we never thought would happen

start to happen: the solid fences

of reality begin to soften,

crumbling into fables and romances -

and we turn away from where we've been

to a new place, where light is pouring in.

- Marilyn L. Taylor

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