James Tate
James Vincent Tate was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He taught creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University, and at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he worked since 1971. He was a member of the poetry faculty at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers, along with Dara Wier and Peter Gizzi.
Dudley Fitts selected Tate's first book of poems, The Lost Pilot (1967) for the Yale Series of Younger Poets while Tate was still a student at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop; Fitts praised Tate's writing for its "natural grace." Despite the early praise he received Tate alienated some of his fans in the seventies with a series of poetry collections that grew more and more strange.
He published two books of prose, Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee (2001) and The Route as Briefed (1999). His awards include a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the Wallace Stevens Award, a Pulitzer Prize in poetry, a National Book Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was also a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Tate's writing style is difficult to describe, but has been identified with the postmodernist and neo-surrealist movements. He has been known to play with phrases culled from news items, history, anecdotes, or common speech; later cutting, pasting, and assembling such divergent material into tightly woven compositions that reveal bizarre and surreal insights into the absurdity of human nature.
“for my father, 1922-1944Your face did not rot like the others--the co-pilot, for example, I saw himyesterday. His face is corn-mush: his wife and daughter, the poor ignorant people, stareas if he will compose soon. He was more wronged than Job. But your face did not rotlike the others--it grew dark, and hard like ebony; the features progressed in theirdistinction. If I could cajole you to come back for an evening, down from your compulsiveorbiting, I would touch you, read your face as Dallas, your hoodlum gunner, now,with the blistered eyes, reads his braille editions. I would touch your face as a disinterestedscholar touches an original page. However frightening, I would discover you, and I would notturn you in; I would not make you face your wife, or Dallas,or the co-pilot, Jim. Youcould return to your crazy orbiting, and I would not try to fully understand whatit means to you. All I know is this: when I see you, as I have seen you at leastonce every year of my life, spin across the wilds of the sky like a tiny, African god,I feel dead. I feel as if I were the residue of a stranger's life, that I should pursue you.My head cocked toward the sky, I cannot get off the ground, and, you, passing over again,fast, perfect, and unwilling to tell me that you are doing well, or that it was mistakethat placed you in that world, and me in this; or that misfortune placed these worlds in us.”
“I was outside St. Cecelia's Rectory smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me. It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish brown here and there. When I started to walk away, it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered what the laws were on this kind of thing. There's a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People smiled at me and admired the goat. "It's not my goat," I explained. "It's the town's goat. I'm just taking my turn caring for it." "I didn't know we had a goat," one of them said. "I wonder when my turn is." "Soon," I said. "Be patient. Your time is coming." The goat stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew everything essential about me. We walked on. A police- man on his beat looked us over. "That's a mighty fine goat you got there," he said, stopping to admire. "It's the town's goat," I said. "His family goes back three-hundred years with us," I said, "from the beginning." The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped and looked up at me. "Mind if I pat him?" he asked. "Touching this goat will change your life," I said. "It's your decision." He thought real hard for a minute, and then stood up and said, "What's his name?" "He's called the Prince of Peace," I said. "God! This town is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there's mystery and wonder. And I'm just a child playing cops and robbers forever. Please forgive me if I cry." "We forgive you, Officer," I said. "And we understand why you, more than anybody, should never touch the Prince." The goat and I walked on. It was getting dark and we were beginning to wonder where we would spend the night.”
“They didn't have much troubleteaching the ape to write poems:first they strapped him into a chair,then tied the pencil around his hand(the paper had already been nailed down).Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulderand whispered into his ear:'You look like a god sitting there.Why don't you try writing something?”
“I couldn’t even picture Mavis’s face anymore. It was sad. She was being erased. I wanted to put my finger on her forehead, but there was nothing there.”
“I am not a part of this home any longer. I am a tiny thing created by indifferent scientists. I am an experiment, a mechanical bee placed near the hive. The real bees were happy being bees until I came along and gave them all the false information that destroyed their little lives.”
“Everybody who was anybody seemed to be going to a meeting, the glowworm, who was a solipsist, the lemur who was not.”
“Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dreaming so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it? A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled back, skin falling off. But he wasn't afraid of that. It was a beautiful day. How 'bout some coffee? Don't mind if I do. Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.”
“almost exquisite, the slight madness”
“Having gray hair doesn't matterbut having gray matter matters.”
“He is being nibbled to death by ducks.--More Later, Less the Same”
“A Knock On The Door They ask me if I've ever thought about the end of the world, and I say, "Come in, come in, let me give you some lunch, for God's sake." After a few bites it's the afterlife they want to talk about. "Ouch," I say, "did you see that grape leaf skeletonizer?" Then they're talking about redemption and the chosen few sitting right by His side. "Doing what?" I ask. "Just sitting?" I am surrounded by burned up zombies. "Let's have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday at the 3 Dog Bakery." But they want to talk about my soul. I'm getting drowsy and see butterflies everywhere. "Would you gentlemen like to take a nap, I know I would." They stand and back away from me, out the door, walking toward my neighbors, a black cloud over their heads and they see nothing without end. ”