James Tate is dead. He was a famous poet. It’s sad that he’s dead, and he apparently meant a lot to a lot of poets and I’m sure to his family and friends. He was 72.
I don’t really know much about him. I know very little about modern poetry. I call myself a poet, but we’re not really talking about the same thing.
But, today he died, and today he’s being eulogized, so a lot of my poet friends have been sharing snippets of his work so I paid more attention to James Tate, and learned more about him, than I did when he was alive.
3 or 4 of them attached their favorite James Tate poems, so I read those. There was little thing about Jesus waking up after a nightmare, having a good stiff cup of coffee, and loving everybody, which was a nice, little Christian feelgood piece but I felt really more of a piece of flash fiction than a poem.
Then there was “I am a Finn” which was interesting to read, in the way that a Wikipedia page about Finland is easy to read, but I can’t really say it moved me, or changed my life.
Then there was something about a toad, pet the toad or something like that. Like the Good Morning Jesus poem, I felt it was more of a story than a poem, but I’m not sure what it was about.
But, enough about that. He added to the body of literature. His work meant a lot to a lot of people and even if it isn’t exactly my cup of tea I can at least, after reading these, get why other people loved it.
RIP, James Tate.
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