A Poet in His Own Words
By Elizabeth C. Holtz
Staff Writer

A decent crowd filled the room to listen to renowned poet James Tate read on Monday night. Tate was the second author to take part in the English Department’s Literary Series, following George Saunders’s reading on September 29. Tate read from a selection of poems from the numerous books he has published over the last forty years. His poetry has been garnered numerous awards. Tate’s book of selected poems won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 and Worshipful Company of Fletchers, published in 1994, received the National Book Award.

Tate’s poetry is unconventional and difficult to pin down. Tate defines them loosely as, “more or less prose poems” but adds, “I hope the essence of these poems is pure poetry.” Nevertheless, a clear mark of Tate’s poetry is clarity. He doesn’t try to conceal the meaning in his works or hide behind lots of symbols. During an informal lunch on Monday afternoon when Tate met with two sections of the English course Literary Interpretation, he was asked numerous questions about the meanings of certain poems. To each question, he simply replied that everything was right there on the page.

That is not to say that his poetry is shallow. On the contrary, Tate’s poems are often moving and striking. One of those poems is “It Happens Like This,” which is a whimsical story about a man and a goat named the Prince of Peace; it’s beautiful and sad at the same time. When asked about it on Monday, Tate said, “I’m fond of reading it.” He smiled when recalling the poem, adding that, “He’s just a wonderful goat.”

While he didn’t read that particular poem, Tate delivered a performance worthy of his poetry. He kicked things off with a poem entitled, “Memoir of a Hawk” and was off and running quickly through poem after poem. He read a variety of poems that left much of the audience in laughter. But while many of his poems were humorous, they left a melancholy aftertaste.

Among the most memorable were “Young Man with a Ham,” a short poem about exactly what the title suggests and “The Radish.” Each of these poems are examples of what an excellent storyteller Tate is. His poems often start off describing something in the title, but then the story takes off and readers can never be sure where they are going to end up. Those who were able to attend the reading most likely left with strange and wonderful images dancing in their heads, from singing radishes to prized hams. But if you missed the reading on Monday night, it is definitely worth it to check out at least a few of his poems.