Taylor Mali


Taylor McDowell Mali is an American slam poet, humorist, teacher and voiceover artist.

Life

A 12th-generation native of New York City, Taylor Mali graduated from the Collegiate School, a private school for boys, in 1983. He received a B.A. in English from Bowdoin College in 1987 and an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Kansas State University in 1993. One of four children, his mother was children's book author Jane L. Mali, a recipient of the American Book Award, and his father was H. Allen Mali, vice president of Henry W.T. Mali & Co., manufacturers of pool table coverings. He has married three times. His first wife was Rebecca Ruth Tauber and his second wife was Marie-Elizabeth Mundheim. On August 11, 2013, Mali married Rachel Kahan. On January 2, 2015, he became a father to a baby boy, and in 2017 a baby girl.
On January 7, 2021, the New York Times wrote about his mission to retrieve plastic bags trapped in tree branches around his Brooklyn neighborhood, using a metal painters pole with a 21-foot extension, and comparing him to Don Quixote.

Poetry

As a slam poetry performer, Taylor Mali has been on seven National Poetry Slam teams; six appeared on the finals stage and four won the competition. Mali is the author of What Learning Leaves and the Last Time as We Are, has recorded four CDs, and is included in various anthologies. Poets who have influenced him include Billy Collins, Saul Williams, Walt Whitman, Rives, Mary Oliver, and Naomi Shihab Nye. He is perhaps best known for the poem "What Teachers Make." The popular poem became the basis of a book of essays, titled, "What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World" which was published in 2012 by Putnam Adult.
He appeared in Taylor Mali & Friends Live at the Bowery Poetry Club and the documentaries "SlamNation" and "Slam Planet". He was also in the HBO production, "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry," which won a Peabody Award in 2003. Taylor Mali is the former president of Poetry Slam Incorporated, and he has performed with such renowned poets as Billy Collins and Allen Ginsberg. Although he retired from the National Poetry Slam competition in 2005, he still helps curate the reading series Page Meets Stage, held monthly at the Bowery Poetry Club. His chapbook, The Whetting Stone, won the Rattle Chapbook Prize for 2017.

Teaching

Taylor Mali spent nine years teaching English, history, and math, including stints at Browning School, a boys' school on the Upper East Side of New York City, and Cape Cod Academy, a K-12 private school on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He now lectures and conducts workshops for teachers and students all over the world. In 2001, Taylor Mali used a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts to develop the one-man show "Teacher! Teacher!" about poetry, teaching, and math. He is a strong advocate for the nobility of teaching and in 2000 he set out to create 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, perseverance, or passion." He finally reached the mark on April 1, 2012.

Reception

In 2015, Melissa Lozada-Oliva performed the poem, "Like Totally Whatever " on the final stage of the National Poetry Slam in Oakland, as a rebuttal to Mali's famous poem, "Totally like whatever, you know?". Lozada-Oliva criticized Mali's piece for lacking context, such as how patriarchy impacts women's struggles to speak up. Lozada-Oliva's poem received thunderous applause and secured her team, the House Slam Boston, the championship title that year at NPS. Shortly after the competition, the poem was posted to Button Poetry, which made Lozada-Oliva go viral overnight.

Published works

Books

  • What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World, 2012 -
  • The Last Time As We Are, 2009 -
  • What Learning Leaves, 2002 -
  • The Whetting Stone, 2017 -

    Audio CDs

  • Icarus Airlines, 2007
  • Conviction, 2003
  • Poems from the Like Free Zone, 2000
  • The Difference Between Left & Wrong, 1995

    Anthologies

Collections in which Taylor Mali's work is included
  • Poetry on Stage: At the Red Barn Theatre, Key West, Danne Hughes, ed. 1995
  • Poetry Nation: The North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry, Regie Cabico & Todd Swift, eds. 1998,
  • Will Work For Peace: New Political Poems, Brett Axel, Ed. 1999,
  • Bearing Witness, Margaret Hatcher, ed. 2001,
  • Freedom to Speak Anthology, Patricia Smith & Debora Marsh eds 2002,
  • The Spoken Word Revolution Mark Eleveld, ed. 2003,

    CD Anthologies

Collections in which Taylor Mali's work is included
  • Attack of the Urbanabots
  • New High Score
  • Writers Week IX
  • Best of Urbana 2003
  • The Kerfuffle Incident: Best of the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam
  • Urbana: Bowery Poetry Club
  • Freedom to Speak Anthology
  • Spoken Word Underground
  • ''NYC Slams''

    Narration

  • American Fairy Tales, audiobook, 1998
  • Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, audiobook, 2000
  • Hope Along the Wind: The Story of Harry Hay, documentary, 2002
  • Blizzard!, audiobook, 2003
  • The Great Fire, audiobook, 2003
  • Revenge of the Whale, audiobook, 2005
  • ESCAPE! The Story of the Great Houdini, audiobook, 2006
  • Close To Shore, audiobook, 2007

    Awards

  • 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002 - National Poetry Slam winning team
  • 2001 - U. S. Comedy Arts Festival jury prize for best solo performance, "Teacher! Teacher!"
  • 2003 - AudioFile Earphones Award for ''The Great Fire.''

    YouTube videos

Mali posts videos on his channel at of his own and other performances:
Category:Slam poets
Category:Collegiate School alumni
Category:Bowdoin College alumni
Category:Living people
Category:1965 births
Category:American male voice actors
Category:American male poets
Category:American spoken word poets
Category:Kansas State University alumni
Category:Schoolteachers from New York
Category:Male actors from New York City
Category:Educators from New York City
Category:21st-century American poets
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:American humorists