A Midwestern Summer

So James Tate was a poet who died last Wednesday. I don't really know where to start this post, but that concrete fact seemed as good as anyplace. He was born in Kansas City and did the whole college thing--including a stint at the Iowa Writers' Workshop--before eventually becoming a professor at UMass Amherst in 1971, where he stayed until his death.

Tate and Gordon Cairnie, one of the founders of The Grolier,
as captured by Elsa Dorfman in 1965

His writing has been strangely present around me since then. I hadn't read a single Tate poem until last week, when my dad e-mailed me his obituary. The next day, I went to a poetry reading by Nick Flynn at the MFA. Flynn, whose work I admire quite a bit, was one of Tate's students back in the day, so he read a poem that he'd worked on with him.

Not that any of this holds special meaning or significance. I'm aware that it doesn't, and that I have an extreme inclination to over-interpreting symbolism. But the connections were there, and I am a sucker for both poetry and Kansas Citians.

Here is a poem by Tate. Some of its imagery reminds me of simple hot summers in Platte County, where we'd go near the river to swim and to put pennies on the railroad tracks. With nothing better to do, thinking we knew everything, we'd sit and wait for freight trains to come by and blow loud wind, impossibly close, in our hair and ears.

"Success Comes to Cow Creek"

I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It’s been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he’s the fire hydrant
of the underdog.

When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the edge, and peeks
for meaning in the
ripple it brings. He
scowls. He speaks: when you
walk down any street
you see nothing but
coagulations
of shit and vomit,
and I’m sick of it.
I suggest suicide;
he prefers murder,
and spits again for
the sake of all the
great devout losers.

A conductor’s horn
concerto breaks the
air, and we, two doomed
pennies on the track,
shove off and somersault
like anesthetized
fleas, ruffling the
ideal locomotive
poised on the water
with our light, dry bodies.
Gerald shouts
terrifically as
he sails downstream like
a young man with a
destination. I
swim toward shore as
fast as my boots will
allow; as always,
neglecting to drown.

-From The Lost Pilot (1961) 

(Side note: The weekend was, in short: marimba music, cameras, cleaning, and sweet old dogs. Mondays are killer, but I'm trying this new self-imposed bedtime thing. Maybe I'll finally establish some semblance of routine.)

Thanks for reading this, dear friend.