Taylor Mali Biography

Since 2000, Taylor Mali, a TED "Best of the Web" speaker, has done nothing but compose and perform poetry—and educate others on how to do the same. “His poems are clear,” he says. They're nearly always hilarious, frequently emotional, attractive, and approachable. “As well as clever” (Bob Holman). He has taught in some form since 1990 and is a passionate advocate for teachers and the dignity of teaching. Mali is a descendant of Dutch immigrants who landed in New Amsterdam in the mid-1600s and is an 11th-generation New Yorker. He taught everything from English and history to arithmetic and S.A.T. exam preparation for nine years in the classroom. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his 12-year Quest for One Thousand Teachers, which ended in April 2012, resulted in the creation of 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, and perseverance," an accomplishment he celebrated by donating 12 inches of his hair to the American Cancer Society. He has performed or taught poetry in more than 50 countries and every state in the United States (except Wyoming!). The Whetting Stone (Rattle 2017) by Taylor Mali is a "life-affirmingly gloomy" look at the death of his first wife. He's also the author of Bouquet of Red Flags (Write Bloody Books 2014), a poetic celebration of "a marriage I didn't realize was over," What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World (Putnam 2012), and two other poetry collections, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What Learning Leaves (Write Bloody Books 2009). (Hanover 2002). In 2001, he was awarded a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts to create Teacher! Teacher! earned the jury medal for an outstanding solo performance at the 2001 Comedy Arts Festival for his one-man show about poetry, teaching, and arithmetic. Taylor Mali, the former president of Poetry Slam, Inc., the non-profit organization that supervises all poetry slams in North America, now works solely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist, touring the country performing and conducting workshops, as well as doing occasional commercial voiceover work. He has narrated a number of audiobooks, including The Great Fire (for which he received the Golden Earphones Award for children's narration).

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