POETRY

The Government Lake: Last Poems

by James Tate
HarperCollins. Jul. 2019. 96p. ISBN 9780062914712. $24.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062914736.
COPY ISBN
Few contemporary or recent poets have exerted more influence than Tate (1943–2015), whose first collection, The Lost Pilot, was selected by Dudley Fitts for the Yale Younger Poets Prize and whose Selected Poems won the Pulitzer in 1991. Tate devised his own strand of disjunctive, surreal, disquieting, and jokey poetry, and his strange collisions of images have been widely imitated. This volume is his last collection—the final poem was found, as is in his typewriter—and marshals a set of stylistically related prose poems. Tate’s method, as ever, carries the danger of distancing the reader from the figures and experiences in the poems, yet it is easy to see the affinities of these brief prose pieces with the parables of Franz Kafka and the fiction of Donald Barthelme; they are at once startling, saddening, and amusing.
VERDICT Tate’s readers will not be disappointed in his final work, which evinces no diminishment of his talent or failure of his wry-necked perspective on worldly experience.
Reviewed by Graham Christian, formerly with Andover-Harvard Theological Lib., Cambridge, MA , May 31, 2019

Be the first reader to comment.

Comment Policy:
  • Be respectful, and do not attack the author, people mentioned in the article, or other commenters. Take on the idea, not the messenger.
  • Don't use obscene, profane, or vulgar language.
  • Stay on point. Comments that stray from the topic at hand may be deleted.
  • Comments may be republished in print, online, or other forms of media.
  • If you see something objectionable, please let us know. Once a comment has been flagged, a staff member will investigate.

RELATED 

NONFICTION

Frolic and Tour
by Muldoon, Paul
NONFICTION

Silences
by Ronk, Martha
NONFICTION

The Hardy Tree
by Bierds, Linda
NONFICTION

Solar Perplexus
by Young, Dean
NONFICTION

The Anti-Grief
by Boruch, Marianne
NONFICTION

One Lark, One Horse: Poems
by Hofmann, Michael
More

TOP STORIES

LIBRARY EDUCATION

Kids are using VR to explore worlds and create new ones

COMMUNITY FORM

Kids are using VR to explore worlds and create new ones

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT

Kids are using VR to explore worlds and create new ones

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.