Taylor Byas Books in Order

Taylor Byas explores life in a Black body subjected to scrutiny and violence. Through reworked traditional poetic forms, these poems confront the white gaze while asserting the speaker’s worth, resistance and determination to live.

Drawing its structure from The Wiz, this poetry collection follows a Black woman’s departure from Chicago’s South Side into adulthood and eventual return. Family memories, community life and difficult relationships shape her search for identity and power.

Taylor Byas examines how paintings, photographs, sculpture and film frame Black women as objects of attention. Moving between observer and observed, her poems challenge those inherited images and give the speaker authority over her own story.