CELEBRATIONS

Kurt Heinzelman
Dean Young
Ishmael Klein
Rafael Campo
Arisa White
Dobby Gibson
Adrian C. Louis
Dorothea Lasky
Matthew Zapruder
Lee Upton
Lisa Olstein

BROADSIDES

Full tribute, including more reprinted archives, available in Issue 12.

We are grateful to Dara Wier and the Harry Ransom Center for their permission in reprinting and displaying these materials.

ISSUE 12 FEATURE: JAMES TATE TRIBUTE

CELEBRATIONS & ARCHIVES

Collage by James Tate (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)Read Matthew Zapruder's response to this piece: "Behave Thyself"Read Lee Upton's response to this piece: "Misbehave Thyself" — Collage by James Tate (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)
Read Matthew Zapruder's response to this piece: "Behave Thyself"
Read Lee Upton's response to this piece: "Misbehave Thyself"

"I had no intention to write a poem for Jim, mainly because it doesn’t seem like something he would want, but I saw the collage he made (“Behave Thyself”) and started thinking about how I used to see him all the time in Amherst, over the many years I lived there. How it never ceased to be amazing to run into him in town."

—Matthew Zapruder

Fragment from Tate's notebooks (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center) — Fragment from Tate's notebooks (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)

Collage by James Tate (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center) — Collage by James Tate (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)

"TATE INVENTED A MIRROR WORLD. IT’S SIMILAR TO OUR OWN, BUT EVEN MORE INTENSELY STRANGE, BEAUTIFUL, AND FULL OF UNCANNY JUXTAPOSITIONS. BY PASSING THROUGH IT, WE GET TO ABSORB A LITTLE MORE OF THE UNLIKELIHOOD OF OUR VERY EXISTENCE, A MEASURE OF THE DEGREE TO WHICH SO-CALLED REALITY IS A TOTAL MIRAGE, AND PERHAPS MOST OF ALL, AN INTENSE WONDER THAT MAKES US FEEL MORE FULLY ALIVE. JAMES TATE’S WORK IS A MANUAL FOR ENLARGEMENT WE CAN CARRY ANYWHERE."

—DOBBY GIBSON, "A MANUAL OF ENLARGEMENT"

Manuscript page of "Brave Face" (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)

"Come on, we whisper
to the near disappeared. Come on,
come out, come up. Ok then, we say,
go on, some boats are made for one."

—Lisa Olstein

Collage by James Tate (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)

Tate worked in the rich field of incongruity—and the delight and mystery incongruities of all sorts create, and the resultant laughter.

—Lee Upton

List from Tate's notebooks (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center) — List from Tate's notebooks (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)

Manuscript page of "Days of Pie and Coffee" (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center) — Manuscript page of "Days of Pie and Coffee" (Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center)