[APPLAUSE]
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Tonight we are going to hear from a poet to whom it
may be said, the younger generation is listening.
It is high praise, indeed, when a writer is
as awarded and feted as James Tate has been for books that
have broken open the American idiom as a surreal and stylish
place.
But when it is especially true that he is beloved and followed
by young writers, then we know there
is something really pulsing and singing and tortured
and arrived in his language.
Because the voice must be living and kept alive by new blood.
James Tate has written sonorous and beautiful and haunting
books, instantly recognized as his by their genius titles,
ratcheting up English higher than anyone's heard it.
Listen.
The Oblivion Ha-Ha, Riven Doggeries, Viper Jazz,
Worshipful Company of Fletchers.
These are just a few of his books for which he's
won the Tanning Prize of the Academy of American Poets,
the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the William
Carlos Williams Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Though the awards, perhaps, speak for themselves,
James Tate speaks for us with a hilariously dark clarity.
Tonight we're lucky to be that darkness into which he sings.
Among the grand names of living American poets,
it's to James Tate we turn for the magical landscape we
desperately recognize as the place the soul
arrives for comfort.
Don't mistake me, it is not always
comfy in a James Tate poem, for we're traveling fast.
It's dazzling, scary, and humbling.
But it's liberating, and by the end, it is healing.
Please join me in warmly welcoming, quite
a guy, the poet, James Tate.
[APPLAUSE]
That was really nice.
I think quite a guy would have sufficed.
[LAUGHTER]
That was very nice.
Thank you so much Jane.
It's really nice to be here.
Thank you for coming out.
Oh, you're here, too.
OK.
You can raise the mic.
I probably ought to do that.
OK.
I'll begin with a poem called "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 Three 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.
This next poem is called "I Left My Couch in Tatamagouche."
I desired lemonade.
It was hot, and I had been walking for hours,
but after much wrestling, pushing, and shoving,
I simply could not get my couch through the restaurant door.
Several customers and the owner and the owner's son
were kinder than they should have been.
But finally it was time to close,
and I urged them to return to their homes.
Their families needed them.
The question of who needs what was hardly
my field of expertise.
That night while sleeping peacefully
outside the train station on my little green couch,
I met a giantess by the name of Anna Swan.
She knelt beside my couch and stroked my brow
with tenderness.
She was like a mother to me for a few moments
there under the night sky.
In the morning, I left my couch in Tatamagouche,
and that has made a big difference.
[LAUGHTER]
This next poem is called "Where Babies Come From."
Most are from the Maldives, Southwest of India,
and must begin collecting shells almost immediately.
The larger ones may prefer coconuts.
Survivors move from island to island,
hopping over one another and never looking back.
After the typhoons have had their pick,
and the birds of prey have finished with theirs,
the remaining few must build boats, and in this, of course,
they can have no experience.
They build their boats of palm leaves and vines.
Once the work is completed they lie down
thoroughly exhausted and confused,
and a huge wave washes them out to sea.
And that is the last they see of one another.
In their dreams, mama and papa are
standing on the shore for what seems like an eternity,
and it is almost always the wrong shore.
This next poem is called "My Felisberto."
My felisberto is handsomer than your mergotroid,
although admittedly your mergotroid
may be the wiser of the two.
Whereas your mergotroid never winces or quails,
my felisberto is a titan of inconsistencies.
For a night of wit and danger and temptation,
my felisberto would be the obvious choice.
However, at dawn or dusk when serenity is desired,
your mergotroid cannot be [? ignored ?]..
Merely to sit near it in the garden
and watch the fabrications of the world swirl by,
the deep sea's bathymetry wash your eyes,
not to mention the little fawns of the forest
and their flip-floppy gymnastics.
Ah, for this and so much more, your mergotroid
is infinitely preferable.
But there is a place for darkness and obscurity
without which life can seem sometimes too
much, too frivolous, and too profound simultaneously.
And that is when my felisberto is needed, is longed for,
and loved.
And then the sun can rise again.
The bee and the hummingbird drink of the world,
and your mergotroid elaborates the silent concert
that is always, and always about to begin.
This next poem is called "Days of Pie and Coffee."
A motorist once said to me, and this
was in the country on a county lane,
a motorist slowed his vehicle as I
was walking my dear old collie, Sithney,
by the side of the road.
And the motorist came to a halt, mildly alarming
both Sithney and myself, not yet accustomed to automobiles.
And this particular motorist sent a little spasm of fright
up our spines, which in turn panicked the driver a bit.
And it seemed as if we were off to a bad start,
and that's when Sithney began to bark,
and the man could not be heard.
That is, if he was speaking or trying to speak,
because I was commanding Sithney to be silent,
though indeed I was sympathetic to his emotional excitement.
It was, as I recall, a day of prodigious beauty.
April 21, 1932, clouds like the inside of your head explained.
Blue birds too numerous to mention.
The clover calling you by name, and fields oozing green.
And this motorist from nowhere moving his lips
like the wings of a butterfly and nothing coming out.
And Sithney silent now.
He was no longer looking at us, but straight ahead
where his election was in doubt.
That's a fine dog, he said.
Collies are made in heaven.
Well, if I were a voting man I'd vote for you, I said.
A bedoozling day to be lost in the country, I say.
Leastways, I am a misplaced individual.
We introduced ourselves and swapped a few stories.
He was a veteran salesman who didn't believe in his product.
I've forgotten what it was.
Hair restorer, parrot feed, and he employed nothing more--
and he enjoyed nothing more than a day spent meandering
the back roads in his jalopy.
I gave him directions to the Denton farm,
but I doubt that he followed them.
He didn't seem to be listening, and it was getting late,
and Sithney had an idea of his own.
And I don't know why I'm remembering this now.
Just that he summed himself up by saying,
I've missed too many boats, and all these years later I
keep thinking that was a man who loved to miss boats.
But he didn't miss them that much.
Did I say that it's extraordinarily nice
to be here?
It is.
This is a poem called "Brave Face."
It seemed as if for as long as we could remember,
evil days and hard times stalked us, singled out the weak
and the strong as well.
The beautiful and the good were shown no mercy,
and all the while we believed in a better day.
We sang the songs of praise and the songs of parting.
And at those gatherings when food
was prepared in celebration, a wolf
circled in the spirit world where only his whims mattered.
Not nice to admit it, but one ached for normalcy.
To enjoy what was left, one would be considered a traitor
to the cause.
And this increasingly angered me.
I eventually confided to my wife,
half expecting her to throttle me on the spot.
And that is precisely what she did.
And then we made sweet love and watched the sunset.
What you are feeling is not different than the rest,
she said.
I was feeling her breast at the time, and the rest were not.
[LAUGHTER]
A story like this doesn't really end.
A wolf goes from door to door through all the streets
of the village.
It pauses here and there, but we do not know what it thinks,
or if it thinks at all.
Laughter of almost any kind seems to frighten it.
That, and the sound of its own name.
And this is called "Shroud of the Gnome."
And what amazes me is that none of our modern inventions
surprise or interest him even a little.
I tell him it his time he got his booster shots,
but then I realized I have no power over him whatsoever.
He becomes increasingly light-footed
until I lose sight of him downtown
between the federal building and the post office.
A registered nurse is taking her coffee break.
I myself need a break, so I sat down next to her
at the counter.
Don't mind me, I said, I'm just a hungry little Gnostic
in need of a sandwich.
This old line of mine had met with great success
on any number of previous occasions.
[LAUGHTER]
I thought a deaf, dumb, and blind nurse sounds ideal.
[LAUGHTER]
But then I remembered that some of the earliest Paleolithic
office workers also feigned blindness
when approached by non-office workers.
Paid my bill and disappeared down an alley,
where I composed myself.
Amid the piles of outcast citizenry and burning barrels
of waste and rot, the plump--
the plump rats darting freely, the havoc of blown newspapers
lay the little shroud of my lost friend.
Small and gray and threadbare, when
worn by the ages of scurrying hither and thither.
Battered by the avalanches and private tornadoes
of just being a gnome, but surely there
were good times too.
And now, rejuvenated by the wind the shroud moves forward,
hesitates, dances sideways, brushes my foot
as if for a kiss, and flies upward,
whistling a little known ballad about the pitiful, raw
etiquette of the underworld.
I've got three glasses of water and a very dry throat,
but I have this terrible memory once of--
Years ago now, so I may have overcome it.
I don't know.
--of reaching for a glass in the middle of the reading
and just going, wah.
So I'm looking at these glasses, I'm very thirsty.
Have a drink?
Go ahead.
All right?
Yeah?
You going to cover for me?
[LAUGHTER]
I did it.
Well that felt good.
[LAUGHTER]
This is called "Acting on a Tip."
We went to the bug-eating state.
We sat down on some little bluestem grass.
Grasshoppers plagued the state, so who's eating the bugs?
Acting on a tip, we brushed our teeth.
This was going to be a very long drive.
Recumbent bison decorated the airwaves.
Acting on a tip, I got dressed and walked down to the river
and washed my face and combed my hair
and picked the bugs from my teeth and urinated on a leaf.
The leaf was a moving target, as a crack
squadron of soldier ants had big plans for it elsewhere.
My yellow rain was meant to amuse them, nothing more.
What a glorious morning for bugs, in general.
For caterpillars speeding toward their destiny in the sky.
Dragonflies mating in flight.
Ancient beetles lugging their excess wisdom
to the auction block.
And katydids in charge of cryptography.
And walking sticks, to remind us of how long the road can be.
And this is by no means an exhaustive catalog.
One could prattle on about a variety of mites
until the cows come home.
Instead, let's talk about cows no more.
Acting on a tip, I zipped up and returned to the beefsteak club
in progress, the raving, looting, windswept,
boomeranging family of vacationers to which I belong.
They were seated on a log discussing pork futures.
My beloved daughter Tabitha was breathing heavily.
There was a common earwig exiting her right ear,
or so I told her.
Daddy, that earwings crawl into people's ears at night
and bite them is a totally unfounded superstition.
Earwigs are harmless, only occasionally damaging
flower blossoms.
I scanned the horizon.
Let's camp here, I said.
But daddy, they announced in unison, We are camped here.
[LAUGHTER]
This is called "The Definition of Gardening."
Jim just loves to garden.
Yes he does.
He likes nothing better than to pull out
his little-- to put on his little overalls and his straw
hat.
He says, let's go get those tools, Jim.
And then begins to set in, he says, what is a garden, anyway?
And thoughts about a modernistic garden
begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve.
He stands in the driveway a long time.
Horticulture is a groping in the dark
into the obscure and unfamiliar.
Kneeling before a disinterested secret.
Slapping it, punching it like a Chinese puzzle.
birdbrained, babbling gibberish, dig and destroy, pull out
and apply salt, hoe and spray before it spreads,
burn roots where not desired with gloved hands poisonous.
The self-sacrifice of it.
The self-love into the interior, thunderclap,
excruciating, through the nose, the earsplitting necrology
of it.
The withering, shriveling, the handy hose holder
and Persian insect powder and smut fungi.
Enemies of the iris, wire worms are worse than their parents.
There is no way out.
Flowers as big as heads.
Pockmarked, disfigured, blinking insolently at me.
The me who so loves to garden because it prevents
the heaving of the ground and the untimely death of porch
furniture and dark murky days in a large city and the dream home
under a permanent storm is also a factor to keep in mind.
[LAUGHTER]
This is called "Per Diem."
Spherically wondrous sunbeam dwelling in the mansion
of the pine of chastity.
Today we bought an ice pack for Mildred's injured foot.
Luminous shadow in the plumflower chamber.
Edna quit her job yesterday, got drunk, stayed drunk,
behaved like a defective monster,
collapsing in the mansion of self-pity.
Meanwhile, the great sea of compassion rolled in,
rolled out, rolled in, and the blue mountain of itself
remains.
And the blind shampooers never tire of their work.
Blind.
Oh yes, here's another blind.
This poem is called "The Blind Heron."
Now Kiki's gone and lost her cockatiel, Lilith.
She's put signs up all over town offering a reward.
I don't hold--
I don't hold out much hope for Lilith's return.
Given our New England climate, she's probably
halfway to Australia by now.
Kiki mopes around feeling rejected, of course.
Taking it personally, of course, as if Lilith
were the final judge.
And it is true, Kiki has her problems.
She's a liar, for one thing.
And not just your average prevaricator.
Kiki once arrived at a party at my house
and announced to everyone that the president has just
been shot.
We turned on the radio immediately,
and it was true the president had just been shot,
but Kiki didn't know this.
[LAUGHTER]
It was her idea of an entrance, or so we thought.
But perhaps that was a poor example
of Kiki's essentially prevaricating nature.
OK.
One time I asked Kiki what she did over the weekend.
She said, I went to Tasmania.
That's nice, I said.
But please don't insult my credulity.
Tasmania, hmm.
What's the capital of Tasmania?
Hobart, she said.
I captured a very nice cockatiel while I was there.
Would you like to-- would you care to meet it?
Well I met Lilith, a nice looking bird.
Very nice.
But I really don't think Lilith is her real name.
If I had flown to Tasmania for the weekend
and had captured a fine bird like that,
I would have called her Christina the Astonishing.
I would have known beyond a doubt
that that was her true name.
Why Kiki lies about such elementary truths is beyond me.
You can see why I considered it my duty
to remove the bird from Kiki's care, Poor
Kiki, and beautiful, glorious Christina
the Astonishing, who by the way, is from Australia, not
Tasmania.
Of that I am almost certain.
[LAUGHTER]
This next poem is called "Chronology of Events."
God knows we've never thought of you
as insufficiently frou-frou.
I actually said that this morning
to my coffee, and the word recherché was not far away,
scowling at me.
I had a stranglehold on a straw man.
The son of a bitch was dying fast,
and then I let go and floated for a while.
Time passed like a butterfly in the room.
Suddenly, I was in a bathtub sinking.
And then I was on a couch for a long time.
Long, long time, and the butterfly landed on me
and held me in its scissors grip.
Page upon page of blank transcript.
A room inched sideways, only slightly,
A nuthatch clung to the window screen.
Moments of great clarity inhabited me.
I was their anthill, and they were my ants.
And they too must sleep according to a lot of prophets.
And they will be nameless, yes, and faceless, yes.
The prophets will boss them around and insult
their mothers, and the little ants of clarity
will just work harder and harder for they
are blind and dedicated and stupid, stupid, stupid.
This was revealed to me around 2:24 PM, 9/27/95.
Exciting.
I can do that.
if I want.
I'm getting better.
This next poem is called "The New Ergonomics."
The new ergonomics were delivered just
before lunchtime, so we ignored them.
Without revealing the particulars,
let me just say that lunch was most satisfying.
Jack and Roberta went with the corned beef, for a change.
Jack believes in alien abduction, and Roberta does
not, although she has had several lost weekends lately.
And one or two unexplained scars on her buttocks.
[LAUGHTER]
I thought I recognized someone from my childhood
at a table across the room.
The same teeth, the same hair, but when he stood up I
wasn't sure.
Squid, with a red tie?
Impossible.
I finished my quiche Lorraine and returned my thoughts
to Jack's new jag.
Well, I guess anything's possible.
People disappear all the time.
And most of them have no explanation,
when and if they return.
Look at Tony--
Look at Tony's daughter, and she's never been the same.
Jack was looking as if he'd bet on the right horse now.
And these new ergonomics, who really designed them?
Does anybody know?
Do they tell us anything?
A name?
An address?
Hell no.
Squid was paying his bill in a standard-issue blue blazer.
He looked across the room at me several times.
He looked tired, like he wanted to sleep
for a long time in a barn somewhere in Kansas.
I wanted to sleep there, too.
This is called "Think of Your Absent Friend."
Think of your absent friend, and I say, pig iron.
The bumbershoot is departed for the desert,
using the back staircase and through the back door,
incognito, hush-hush, cat-like, like a cloud.
And what's a friend going to do but cleave and cling,
remembering the flying horse, the chained maiden baroness's
hair, not to mention foreign bodies in the eye.
Convulsions and loss of limb, in addition to forms of address
for persons of rank and public office,
and the Republic of Tonga.
I think of my absent friend and all of this.
And so much more whistles through my nervous system.
Snowy tree crickets, toothpick grasshoppers,
immunization schedules for children,
golden parachutes, seasonal adjustments.
My friend, the last gasp of an old regime.
My friend, apogee of central Asian power.
My friend in the home of Knute Rockne,
and who knows the living arrangements of young adults
all too well.
Not to mention most of the injuries
and illnesses in industry, absent now and gone.
Like the cholera epidemic in Peru is now gone.
History.
And even as the jobless rate continues to rise,
so my friend is absent, is a nonpresence,
and is everywhere reminding me.
This is called "Never Again the Same."
Speaking of sunsets, last night's was shocking.
I mean, sunsets aren't supposed to frighten you, are they?
Well this one was terrifying.
People were screaming in the streets.
Sure, it was beautiful, but far too beautiful.
It wasn't natural.
One climax followed another and then another
until your knees went weak, and you couldn't breathe.
The colors were definitely not of this world.
Peaches dripping opium, pandemonium
of tangerines, inferno of irises, Plutonian emeralds,
all swirling and churning, swabbing, like it was playing
with us, like we were nothing, as if our whole lives were
a preparation for this.
This for which nothing could have prepared us
and for which we could not have been less prepared.
The mockery of it all stung us bitterly,
and when it was finally over, we whimpered and cried and howled.
And then the streetlights came on as always,
and we looked into one another's eyes,
ancient caves with still pools, and those little transparent
fish who have never seen even one ray of light.
And the calm that returned to us was not even our own.
Called "Restless Leg Syndrome."
After the burial we returned to our units
and assumed our poses.
Our posture was the new posture and not the old sick posture.
When we left our stations it was just to prove we could,
not a serious departure or a search
for yet another beginning.
We were done with all that.
We were settled in, as they say, though it
might have been otherwise.
What a story.
After the burial we returned to our units
and here is where I'm experiencing that leg
kicking syndrome thing.
My leg, for no apparent reason, flies
around the room kicking stuff.
Well, whatever is in the way.
Like a screen or a watering can.
Those are just two examples, and indeed I could give many more.
I could construct a catalog of the things it kicks.
Perhaps I will do that later.
Well, we'll just have to see if it's really wanted.
Or I could do a little now and then return to listing later.
It kicked the scrimshaw collection, yes it did.
It kicked the ocelot, which was rude and uncalled for
and, yes, hurtful.
It kicked the guacamole right out of its bowl,
which made for a grubby and potentially dangerous
workplace.
I was out testing the new speed bump
when it kicked the Viscountess, which she probably
deserved, and I was happy, needless to say,
to not be a witness.
The kicking subsided for a while.
Nobody was keeping track of time, at that time,
so it's impossible to fill out the forms accurately.
Suffice it to say, we remained at our units on constant alert,
and then it kicked over the little cowtown
we had set up for punching and that sort of thing.
A covered wagon filled with cover girls.
But now it was kicked over, and we had a moment of silence,
but it was clear to me that many of our minions
were getting tetchy, and some of them were getting tetchier.
And then it kicked a particularly treasured snuff
box, which legend has it, once belonged
to somebody named Bob Mackey, so we were understandably saddened
and returned to our units rather weary.
No one seemed to think I was in the least bit culpable.
It was my leg, of course, that was doing the actual kissing--
kicking, of that I am almost certain.
At any rate, we decided to bury it.
After the burial we returned to our units
and assumed our poses.
A little bit of time past, not much.
And then John's legs started acting suspicious.
It looked like it wanted to kick the replica of the White House
we kept on hand just for situations such as this.
And then, sure enough, it did.
[LAUGHTER]
This is called "Non-Stop."
It seemed as if the enormous journey was finally
approaching its conclusion.
From the window of the train, the last trees
were dissipating.
A child-like sailor waved once.
A seal-like dog barked and died.
The conductor entered the lavatory
and was not seen again, although his harmonica
playing was appreciated.
It was not without talent, some said.
A botanist with whom I had become acquainted
actually suggested we form a group or something.
I was looking for a familiar signpost in his face
or a landmark that would indicate
the true colors of his tribe, but alas there
was not a glass of water anywhere
or even the remains of a trail.
I got a bewildered expression of my own
and slinked to the back of the car
where a nun started to tickle me.
She confided to me that it was her cowboy
pride that got her through.
Through what?
I thought.
Drew my hand close to my imaginary vest.
That's a beautiful vest, she said,
as I began crawling down the aisle.
At last, I pressed my face against the window,
a little fog was licking its chop,
as was the stationmaster licking something.
We didn't stop.
We didn't appear to be arriving, and yet we
were almost out of landscape.
No creeks or rivers.
Nothing even remotely reminding one of a mound.
Oh mound, thou ain't around no more.
A heap of abstract geometrical symbols,
that's what it's coming to, I thought.
And nothing you could sink your teeth into.
Reliefs on the way, a little know-nothing boy said to me.
Imagine my surprise, I said, and reached out to muss his hair,
but he had no hair, and it felt unlucky
touching his skull like that.
Forget what I said, he said.
What did you say, I asked in automatic compliance.
And then it got very dark and quiet.
I closed my eyes and dreamed of an emu I once loved.
[LAUGHTER]
And this is the last poem.
Been very nice reading to you.
This poem is called "Dream On."
Some people go their whole lives without ever
writing a single poem.
Extraordinary people who don't hesitate to cut
somebody's heart or skull open.
They go to baseball games with the greatest of ease
and play a few rounds of golf as if it were nothing.
These same people stroll into a church
as if that were a natural part of life.
Investing money is second nature to them.
They contribute to political campaigns
that have absolutely no poetry in them
and promise none for the future.
They sit around the dinner table at night
and pretend as though nothing is missing.
Their children get caught shoplifting at the mall,
and no one admits that it is poetry they are missing.
The family dog howls all night, lonely and starving
for more poetry in his life.
Why is it so difficult for them to see that without poetry
their lives are effluvial.
Sure, they have their banquets, their celebrations, croquet,
fox hunts, their seashores and sunsets,
their cocktails on the balcony, dog races,
and all that kissing and hugging.
And don't forget the good deeds, the charity work,
nursing the baby squirrels all through the night,
filling the bird feeders all winter,
helping the stranger change her tire.
Still there's that disagreeable exhalation from decaying
matter, subtle but ever present.
They walk around erect like champions.
They are smooth-spoken, urbane, and witty.
When alone, rare occasion, they stare into the mirror
for hours bewildered.
There was something they meant to say, but didn't.
And if we put the statue of the rhinoceros next to the tweezers
and walk around the room three times, learn to yodel,
shave our heads, call our ancestors back from the dead,
poetry-wise, it's still a bust.
Bankrupt.
You haven't scribbled a syllable of it.
You're a nowhere man, misfiring the very essence of your life,
flustering nothing from nothing and back again.
The hereafter may not last all that long.
Radiant childhood sweetheart, secret code
of everlasting joy and sorrow, fanciful pen strokes
beneath the eyelids.
All day, all night meditation, knot of hope, kernel of desire,
pure ordinariness of life.
Seeking through poetry a benediction or a bed
to lie down on.
To connect, reveal explore.
To imbue meaning on the day's extravagant labor,
and yet it's cruel to expect too much.
It's a rare species of bird that refuses to be recognized.
Its song is barely audible.
It's like a dragonfly in a dream.
Here, then there, then here again.
Low-flying, amber-wing darting upward and then out of sight.
And the dream has a pain in its heart.
The wonders of which are manifold,
or so the story is told.
Thanks again.
[APPLAUSE]