Sam Taylor

Sam Taylor serves as Associate Professor and Creative Writing Director in the Department of English at Wichita State University's Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. An acclaimed poet with three critically recognized books, his work engages with spirituality, ecological crises, and political landscapes through lyrical and experimental forms.

His research centers on Poetry and Creative Writing, characterized by ecological urgency, spiritual inquiry, and political engagement. Taylor's verse blends personal narrative with societal critique, exemplified by themes like plastic pollution in "[THE AFTERLIFE]" and extinction narratives in "The Book of Endings." His writing consistently confronts contemporary precarity while maintaining lyrical precision.

Publication trends reveal deepening exploration of ecological degradation and imperial critique, evolving from spiritual unity in Body of the World (2005) to urgent political ecology in Nude Descending an Empire (2014), culminating in the hybrid memoir-verse format of The Book of Fools (2021). His work consistently interrogates humanity's relationship with power, nature, and artistic responsibility.

Award highlights include:

• Dobie Paisano Fellowship and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize
• Anne Halley Prize and Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship
• Residencies at Yaddo, Djerassi, Ucross, Studios at Key West, and Vermont Studio Center

As MFA Program Director, Taylor mentors emerging writers while maintaining his creative practice. His residencies and fellowships directly support sustained literary production, with recent works emerging from Vermont Studio Center and Ucross residencies. Kansas-based gardening practice informs his ecological poetics.

Though no formal labs exist, his "wild garden in Kansas" functions as a living laboratory for ecological observation that permeates his poetry, notably in depictions of flora and environmental decay.