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UNPAINTED HOUSES, poetry by Mervyn Taylor
Publication Date: April 15, 2026
Paperback, 86 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-34-5
In his new collection Unpainted Houses, Mervyn Taylor recalls “Getting Lost” as a child on his way home from the movies, and of his relief upon finding familiar landmarks and knowing himself safe. The nostalgia in these poems serves a like purpose, his memories of his native Trinidad and his long-adopted Brooklyn both anchoring him in the uncertain present where he wears black “for the dead, for the strong / shoulders of the bearers.” The title poem recalls a tax dodge of leaving houses unpainted, “how we managed island / by island, until the day we could / afford to paint the house purple, / orange, any damn color we want” – a sly tribute to making do, skirting the edges, the celebration of getting by. An encounter with a Guinean neighbor leaves him “wondering if heartbreak is / different in another language.” In these poems, Tayor has mastered the universal language of heartbreak, of humanity, and of hope.
Praise for Mervyn Taylor & Unpainted Houses
“The Music Must Be Coming from Somewhere,” the first poem in this new collection, opens onto a landscape of sound, where memories hiss in the air, and history dances at the front of a Carnival parade. Houses hold secrets and share gossip and dream of being painted. Curtains turn into capes spun from ancient threads, fabric of the islands brought to this city by the poet Mervyn Taylor, himself a masquerader. Follow the 9/11 Man, covered in soot, as he comes to the place where Sonny Rollins practices, and the songs here partner with the ones over there.
—Rashidah Ismaili, author of Autobiography of the Lower East Side
“When I saw the blue house at the corner of the lane, I / laughed out loud. I knew where I Was …,” writes Mervyn Taylor in this collection that fuses the cultures of Trinidad with that of Brooklyn. Sensuous, aching, and illuminating, poem after poem juxtaposes the ruin of humanity and the planet with the sweetness of “a hummingbird’s pee.” Unpainted Houses is a homage to houses painted and unpainted that serve as refuge to the people who live there: “I like the quiet, in-between notes / that linger…/…coming / from a voice so like mine.” These poems are steeped in love, caught in the circle of leaving and returning. “And when / the basin on your lap was nearly full, / I saw your hair, like mine, was gray.”
—Catherine Strisik, author of Goat, Goddess, Moon
Each of these visionary poems embodies the “song that’s been sung since Day One, its lilt, like light from a worn-out star.” Mervyn Taylor’s poetry chronicles the hope and pain people endure, as they live between cultures and through political upheavals. Taylor does not solely define himself or his friends by their clashes of geographies, but draws from them the wisdom “of the universe, which sounds like someone playing with a door, opening and closing it.” Luckily for us, Unpainted Houses provides the doorways for strangers and foreigners, not only through the glimmer of “a worn-out star,” but with a calypso beat leading to survival.
—Melinda Thomsen, author of Dropping Sunrises in a Jar
About the Author
In a broad, ongoing Savannah meets Prospect Park narrative, Mervyn Taylor’s poems join experiences of his native Trinidad with those of having lived for many years in Brooklyn. He has taught in the NYC public school system and at The New School, where his Banana Boat Poetry Cruise was a course on the Caribbean in verse. Currently, he serves as editor with Slapering Hol Press, Hudson Valley, New York. Unpainted Houses is his tenth full-length collection of poetry. About Taylor’s work the poet Derek Walcott once said, “There are many words for what is perhaps the most difficult aspect of good verse: honesty. Mervyn Taylor is an honest poet, and that is high and sufficient praise indeed.”
The cover art, “Unfinished House,” was completed during the COVID lockdown period spent in the house where he grew up, in Belmont, a short walk to the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain.
Publication Date: April 15, 2026
Paperback, 86 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-34-5
In his new collection Unpainted Houses, Mervyn Taylor recalls “Getting Lost” as a child on his way home from the movies, and of his relief upon finding familiar landmarks and knowing himself safe. The nostalgia in these poems serves a like purpose, his memories of his native Trinidad and his long-adopted Brooklyn both anchoring him in the uncertain present where he wears black “for the dead, for the strong / shoulders of the bearers.” The title poem recalls a tax dodge of leaving houses unpainted, “how we managed island / by island, until the day we could / afford to paint the house purple, / orange, any damn color we want” – a sly tribute to making do, skirting the edges, the celebration of getting by. An encounter with a Guinean neighbor leaves him “wondering if heartbreak is / different in another language.” In these poems, Tayor has mastered the universal language of heartbreak, of humanity, and of hope.
Praise for Mervyn Taylor & Unpainted Houses
“The Music Must Be Coming from Somewhere,” the first poem in this new collection, opens onto a landscape of sound, where memories hiss in the air, and history dances at the front of a Carnival parade. Houses hold secrets and share gossip and dream of being painted. Curtains turn into capes spun from ancient threads, fabric of the islands brought to this city by the poet Mervyn Taylor, himself a masquerader. Follow the 9/11 Man, covered in soot, as he comes to the place where Sonny Rollins practices, and the songs here partner with the ones over there.
—Rashidah Ismaili, author of Autobiography of the Lower East Side
“When I saw the blue house at the corner of the lane, I / laughed out loud. I knew where I Was …,” writes Mervyn Taylor in this collection that fuses the cultures of Trinidad with that of Brooklyn. Sensuous, aching, and illuminating, poem after poem juxtaposes the ruin of humanity and the planet with the sweetness of “a hummingbird’s pee.” Unpainted Houses is a homage to houses painted and unpainted that serve as refuge to the people who live there: “I like the quiet, in-between notes / that linger…/…coming / from a voice so like mine.” These poems are steeped in love, caught in the circle of leaving and returning. “And when / the basin on your lap was nearly full, / I saw your hair, like mine, was gray.”
—Catherine Strisik, author of Goat, Goddess, Moon
Each of these visionary poems embodies the “song that’s been sung since Day One, its lilt, like light from a worn-out star.” Mervyn Taylor’s poetry chronicles the hope and pain people endure, as they live between cultures and through political upheavals. Taylor does not solely define himself or his friends by their clashes of geographies, but draws from them the wisdom “of the universe, which sounds like someone playing with a door, opening and closing it.” Luckily for us, Unpainted Houses provides the doorways for strangers and foreigners, not only through the glimmer of “a worn-out star,” but with a calypso beat leading to survival.
—Melinda Thomsen, author of Dropping Sunrises in a Jar
About the Author
In a broad, ongoing Savannah meets Prospect Park narrative, Mervyn Taylor’s poems join experiences of his native Trinidad with those of having lived for many years in Brooklyn. He has taught in the NYC public school system and at The New School, where his Banana Boat Poetry Cruise was a course on the Caribbean in verse. Currently, he serves as editor with Slapering Hol Press, Hudson Valley, New York. Unpainted Houses is his tenth full-length collection of poetry. About Taylor’s work the poet Derek Walcott once said, “There are many words for what is perhaps the most difficult aspect of good verse: honesty. Mervyn Taylor is an honest poet, and that is high and sufficient praise indeed.”
The cover art, “Unfinished House,” was completed during the COVID lockdown period spent in the house where he grew up, in Belmont, a short walk to the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain.