Taylor Mali

• Name — Taylor Mali • Birth Name — Taylor McDowell Mali • Born — 28 March 1965 • Birthplace — New York City, New York, United States • Occupation — Poet, humorist, teacher, voice actor • Education — Collegiate School • Alma Mater — Bowdoin College Kansas State University • Movement — Slam Poetry • Notable Works — "What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World," What Learning Leaves • Spouse — Rachel Kahan • Website — taylormali.com

• Illustration — Mali's 4th grade photo in the 1975 Collegiate yearbook 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 (married in 1993; she died in 2004) and his second wife was Marie-Elizabeth Mundheim (married in 2006; they divorced in 2012). 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.

• Illustration — Taylor Mali performing at the international school in Stockholm 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 (1996 with Team Providence; 1997, 2000 and 2002 with Team NYC-Urbana). Mali is the author of What Learning Leaves and the Last Time as We Are (Write Bloody Publishing), 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" (1997) and "Slam Planet" (2006). 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.

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

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,

Collections in which Taylor Mali's work is included • Attack of the Urbanabots (The Wordsmith Press, 2007) • New High Score (The Wordsmith Press, 2004) • Writers Week IX (WWIX, 2004) • Best of Urbana 2003 (The Wordsmith Press, 2003) • The Kerfuffle Incident: Best of the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam (KPS, 2003) • Urbana: Bowery Poetry Club (The Wordsmith Press, 2002) • Freedom to Speak Anthology(CD) (The Wordsmith Press, 2002) • Spoken Word Underground (The Wordsmith Press, 2001) • NYC Slams (Anthology) (PoetCD, 2000)

• 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

Mali posts videos on his channel at YouTube of his own and other performances: * * * *