The right book at the right time: an impassioned defense of teachers and why our society needs them now more than ever.Former middle-school teacher and teachers' advocate Taylor Mali struck a chord with his passionate response to a man at a dinner party who asked him what kind of salary teachers mak[...]

You don't need a classroom to be a teacher, and you don't need to be a teacher to help someone learn a lesson. Taylor Mali's poetry explores this truth in entertaining and plainspoken ways because "the last thing this world needs is another poem" ("The Call to What We Know"). Whether discussing the [...]

Called "a ranting comic showman and a literary provocateur" by The New York Times, Taylor Mali writes eloquently and entertainingly about his experiences in and out of the middle school classroom. Bob Holman, the man who brought the poetry slam to New York City, calls Mali's poems "clear, funny, app[...]