false<![CDATA[Worshipful Company of Fletchers]]>2685022<I>The Worshipful Company of Fletchers</I> is fresh and startling. Like his doppelgangers Jeff Koons in sculpture and Stephen Malkmus in rock music, Tate is a self-consciously cool comedian of contrivances, devising bizarre situations and dressing them in a camouflage of the familiar world. To read Tate is to hear as music the ongoing negotiations between language and reality. In this book his main amusement is a game of categories, culminating in "How the Pope Is Chosen".
With a devil's aplomb, Tate inverts cliches to infiltrate the vocabularies of power in such mischievous poems as "A Manual of Enlargement," "Little Poems with Argyle Socks," and "What the City Was Like." The latter seems to caricature the late William Stafford, with its description of a salt-mining operation behind City Hall. For quality control, "someone / named Mildred" tasted each grain "until she became a stenographer / and moved away," thus devastating the community because "no one could read / her diacritical remarks." In the poetry of James Tate--or that of John Ashbery, Mark Levine, or Russell Edson, all of whom Tate superficially resembles--one looks for clues to the poet's mission. Perhaps a few hints come in the final poem, "Happy as the Day Is Long," in which the speaker feels sympathetic toward the Russians who created a language to communicate with aliens "but never get a postcard back." If it were uncovered that Tate was an inhabitant of another world instead of a middle-aged man from Kansas City, few of those rewarded by <I>The Worshipful Company of Fletchers</I> would be surprised. <I>--Edward Skoog</I>5502821121995Worshipful Company of Fletcherstotal:164|5:61|4:66|3:28|2:7|1:2|1646692041110falsefalseThu Mar 06 12:46:41 -0800 2008Thu Mar 13 08:28:51 -0700 2008
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30falsefalseSun Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008Mon Mar 03 12:38:28 -0800 2008Sun Mar 16 13:46:49 -0700 2008
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50falsefalseSun Oct 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Aug 18 19:10:50 -0700 2009Mon Oct 26 12:28:47 -0700 2009 I'm glad I did. Once the reader gets ...more...]]>
30falsefalseFri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009Wed May 13 11:00:12 -0700 2009Wed May 13 11:00:45 -0700 200900falsefalseMon Feb 09 00:55:32 -0800 2009Mon Feb 09 00:55:41 -0800 200920falsefalseFri Mar 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri Mar 20 19:44:29 -0700 2009Fri Mar 20 19:52:31 -0700 2009 Not my favorite by James Tate, but I did enjoy a few poems, including "Little Poem with Argyle Socks" (great title), "How ...more...]]>
50falsefalseFri Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008Fri Jun 06 09:51:59 -0700 2008Fri Jun 06 09:53:51 -0700 2008
all the cardinals flock to the nearest 7-Eleven.
They drink Slurpies until one of them throws up
and the he's the new Pope.
-"How The Pope Is Chosen"
"Head Of a White Woman Winking" is the poem I've always wanted to write, damnit...]]>
50falsefalseThu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007Mon Nov 05 12:08:42 -0800 2007Thu Nov 08 19:47:08 -0800 200720falsefalseWed May 07 00:57:37 -0700 2008Wed May 07 01:00:14 -0700 2008 But then I think his first book or two are great.]]>
40falsefalseSun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006Sun Dec 16 15:15:54 -0800 2007Sun Dec 16 15:18:51 -0800 200740falsefalseTue Aug 12 15:43:13 -0700 2008Tue Aug 12 15:43:28 -0700 200810falsefalseFri Nov 27 11:05:53 -0800 2009Fri Nov 27 11:05:53 -0800 200940falsefalseFri Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 1996Sun Nov 01 10:43:53 -0800 2009Sun Nov 01 10:43:53 -0800 200940falsefalseTue Oct 20 19:50:32 -0700 2009Tue Oct 20 19:50:32 -0700 200900falsefalseThu Oct 08 12:05:37 -0700 2009Thu Oct 08 12:05:39 -0700 200940falsefalseMon Sep 28 09:55:33 -0700 2009Mon Sep 28 09:55:33 -0700 200950falsefalseSat Sep 19 06:59:24 -0700 2009Sat Sep 19 06:59:24 -0700 200900falsefalseSat Sep 12 16:09:35 -0700 2009Sat Sep 12 16:09:48 -0700 200940falsefalseTue Sep 08 00:17:58 -0700 2009Tue Sep 08 00:17:58 -0700 200930falsefalseWed Aug 12 14:14:55 -0700 2009Wed Aug 12 14:14:55 -0700 2009
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