Quotes from James Tate

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.

They didn't have much trouble teaching 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 shoulder and whispered into his ear: 'You look like a god sitting there. Why don't you try writing something?

He is being nibbled to death by ducks. --More Later, Less the Same

Having gray hair doesn't matter but having gray matter matters.

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.

almost exquisite, the slight madness

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.

What I thought was infinite will turn out to be just a couple of odds and ends, a tiny miscellany, miniature stuff, fragments of novelties, of no great moment. But it will also be enough, maybe even more than enough, to suggest an immense ritual and tradition. And this makes me very happy. From "Happy As The Day Is Long

When people start talking about enjambment and line endings, I always shut them up. This is not something to talk about, this is a private matter, it's up to the poet.

Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing." —

When one is highly alert to language, then nearly everything begs to be a poem.

Dust is watching life's talk show.

I had a theory for a while, but I had to let it go. It was wasting away in captivity. It sat there in the cage of my brain and wouldn't eat. When I had first trapped it it was beautiful and wild and amused everyone. "Too much attention," the vet said. It wasn't cut out for that kind of life. "Smart

When a clock dies no one wakes.

Everybody who was anybody seemed to be going to a meeting, the glowworm, who was a solipsist, the lemur who was not.

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 mistake that placed you in that world, and me in this; or that misfortune placed these worlds in us.

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. (from: 'Never Again the Same')

Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing.

Trained slugs race across his jello in eight-cylinder sombreros

All night a door floated down the river. It tried to remember little incidents of pleasure from its former life, like the time the lovers leaned against it kissing for hours and whispering those famous words. Later, there were harsh words and a shoe was thrown and a door was slammed. From "The Wrong Way Home

I had a theory for a while, but I had to let it go. It was wasting away in captivity. It sat there in the cage of my brain and wouldn't eat. When I had first trapped it it was beautiful and wile and amused everyone. "Too much attention," the vet said. It wasn't cut out for that kind of life. "Smart

I love my funny poems, but I'd rather break your heart. And if I can do both in the same poem, that's the best.

If you laughed earlier in the poem, and I bring you close to tears in the end, that's the best.

I don't think you can define how you acquire your imagination any more than you can define why one person has a sense of humor and another doesn't. But I certainly would lean to the side that says all those solitary hours of daydreaming were a kind of training for poetry.