la-meik ‘cook’ taylor

My name is La-Meik Taylor, and I am a Bard College Graduate, member of the Bard college (BPI) debate union, mental, social, and environmental health activist, Newburgh LGBTQ+ Center ally and Q4J op-ed contributor for the NYS legislative body, Study and Struggle book reviewer, and proud member of the Archive-Based Creative Arts team (ABCA). But before all of this I am a human being. The passion and effort put into my work and the meaningful relationships that I build with others stems from the traumas experienced in a system of carcerality and network of frail social support, so I fight, not just for my own personal gains, but for those who feel lost and may not know how to find themselves in a world full of chaos.

publications

  • The cover of the pulication S.I.M.O.N.E., appearing as an acrostyx that reads Searching Inside My Onerous Neurotic Expressions

    S.I.M.O.N.E. /

    This zine — available summer 2023 — contains 2 essays, S.I.M.O.N.E. by La-Meik Taylor and I AM: Incarcerated Individuals Agenda Memorandum co-written by La-Meik Taylor and Eric Paris Whitfield.

    S.I.M.O.N.E. is a heartfelt and personal exploration of growing up under the thumb of the medical industrial complex, as well as a new model for addressing the experiences of children with parents diagnosed with mental illness.

    I AM is a public health treatise that charts three issues — citizenship, voting rights and healthcare — in the name of “challenging sacrosanct policies, laws and constutions, which seek to abridge our obligations as citizens.”

  • Style and Power

    The essay, Style and Power: Whose World is This? A Quest for Belonging casts Taylor’s introspective gaze on the topic of difference, weaving in reflections on the works of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Layli Long Soldier.

    This essay is available for in-person reading at the ABCA Archives at Come Forever, 342 Hewes St in Brooklyn.