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 language of love or the love of language, the poems contained in The Last Time As We Are prove that -He who dares to teach must never cease to learn.-

With the perfect blend of wit, eloquence, and honesty, Taylor Mali's poems delight, haunt, and illuminate with equal measure every subject they celebrate. Bouquet of Red Flags is laced with more than the typical LSD (love, sex, divorce) of modern poetry. Here lie poems that elevate the overlooked daily miracles of coincidence ("The Luck I Crave") as well as the blessings of loss and longing ("Love as a Form of Diving"). Whether employing form or rhyme or merely crafting the artful prose he is known for, Taylor Mali delivers entertaining epiphanies spiced with the "Deepest Condiments."