37 Quotes by James Tate

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 like to start with the ordinary, and then nudge it, and then think, 'What happens next, what happens next?'

William Waltz will take me through ‘the buzz and clamor in a forest of hearts.’ Adventures in the Lost Interiors of America is an adventure, I will go on this adventure with Waltz as a skillful, faithful, compass-true guide. I love this book.

In You Are Not Dead Wendy Xu breaks all the old rules that have never done us any favors anyway. She writes beautifully, noticing who we are, and letting us see ourselves with a little more humanity, a little more humor, a little more humility. I’m happy to have read this book.

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.

When a clock dies no one wakes.

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.

Dust is watching life’s talk show.