Poem to Some of My Recent Poems

By James Tate b. 1943 James Tate

My beloved little billiard balls,

my polite mongrels, edible patriotic plums,

you owe your beauty to your mother, who

resembled a cyclindrical corned beef

with all the trimmings, may God rest

her forsaken soul, for it is all of us

she forsook; and I shall never forget

her sputtering embers, and then the little mound.

Yes, my little rum runners, she had defective

tear ducts and could weep only iced tea.

She had petticoats beneath her eyelids.

And in her last years she found ball bearings

in her beehive puddings, she swore allegiance

to Abyssinia. What should I have done?

I played the piano and scrambled eggs.

I had to navigate carefully around her brain’s

avalanche lest even a decent finale be forfeited.

And her beauty still evermore. You see,

as she was dying, I led each of you to her side,

one by one she scorched you with her radiance.

And she is ever with us in our acetylene leisure.

But you are beautiful, and I, a slave to a heap of cinders.

Source: Selected Poems (1991)

Biography

James Tate’s poems have been described as tragic, comic, absurdist, nihilistic, hopeful, haunting, lonely, and surreal. His many poetry collections include The Ghost Soldiers (2008); Worshipful Company of Fletchers (1994), which won the National Book Award; Selected Poems (1991), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award; Distance from Loved Ones (1990); Constant Defender (1983); Viper Jazz (1976); and . . .

Continue reading this biography