The New Chinese Fiction

By James Tate b. 1943 James Tate

Although the depiction of living forms

was not explicitly forbidden, the only good news

about famines was that the station was empty.

It was about 2 A.M. The truck drove away.

A tropical insect that lives in enormous cities

stroked my hair awkwardly, organizing everyone's

schedule. She drove me back to my hotel

in a misty and allusive style, while the old

schools continued the process of devolution.

Part of the roof was loose and flapped noisily

in the wind, who needed work like that?

Poor brethren, do you have any good prose yet?

The New Chinese fiction is getting better,

I suspect, people walking and thinking and fussing,

with a nest to fly out of, with a less intimate footing.

Are we responsible for their playtimes?

Keep up your music, my dears; there were a lot of people

like that, with strange eyes, green fields and orchards.

The little house they sat in produced simple people,

cars full of blood, all they needed was a hat,

extramusical sounds, purging the emotions.

Expect no mercy, I said, from the sickbay.

And try to imagine Howard Hughes piloting the plane

that flew Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton off

toward their marriage in 1950. Well, don't bother.

The New Chinese fiction shouldn't concern itself

with anything other than a stolen turnip

and a coldness in the heart, and a lit window,

a young man on a horse appearing and then disappearing.

Source: Worshipful Company of Fletchers (The Ecco Press, 1994)

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 . . .

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