Mervyn Taylor is a Trinidad-born poet who divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and his island home, where he has conducted workshops with youths in prison. In New York, he has taught at Bronx Community College, The New School, and at the Young Adult Learning Academy, where "arts and learning came together as never before, or since." Once a member of the infamous Bud Jones Poets, his work has appeared recently in Black RenaissanceNoire and in the anthology, The American Voice in Poetry. He is the author of four previous volumes of poetry: An Island of His Own, The Goat, and Gone Away , all from Junction Press, No Back Door , from Shearsman Books, and the audio collection, Road Clear , accompanied by bassist David Williams. Says artist LeRoy Clarke, "His poems remind me of old houses in Belmont, with their latticework, the fine lacework on the tables inside."

About Taylor's poems Derek Walcott has observed, "The sense of search, of the avoidance of flash, mutes his meters to an admirable degree, and the tone, which he found remarkably early, keeps him separate and unique."