Distance from Loved Ones (Wesleyan Poetry Series) [Hardcover]

James Tate (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 19, 1990 | Series: Wesleyan Poetry Series

Clear and insightful poetry on our relationship to the given world.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tate ( Reckoner ) tells swirling, surreal stories that challenge the reader sense of language and order as they speak of the absurdity and necessity of love, the schizophrenia of the human psyche in the sensuously overloaded modern world, and the important role of beauty in our lives. amidst all of this madness. Yet the poet's metaphors are comprised of giddy, psychedelic images that relate to one another and to each poem as a whole in ways that exclude the reader--in "Horse Gets Dark," he writes, "Out of the crevices of our predilections / animalcules begin a recital, boisterous / as sharecroppers, disarming the cucumber / salad of its windchime and coat-hanger." Even poems free of cluttered verbiage are difficult to decipher: in "Quabbin Reservoir," there is a village at the bottom of a lake with "several mailmen swimming in or out," and in "Anatomy," the townspeople eagerly await the death of a beautiful woman so that, at last, their "ugliness will become the standard." Tate's poetry represents a deeply personal yet incompletely formed vision.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

The same desperate hunger for love that informed the compelling poems in Tate's prize-winning first collection, The Lost Pilot ( LJ 5/15/67), pervades his tenth book. In the title poem his mother describes in slapstick terms occurrences--from a botched facelift to cancer--that have befallen Zita; when the poet asks who Zita is, he hears: "I am Zita. . . . / And you, my son, who should have known me best, thought I was nothing but your mother." Lovers portrayed in these poems include a snow leopard and a woman who "carried an aura/ of innocence as well as death"; a beached bird's skull could be "my own long-lost ancestor." With expert craft, employing the surrealistic techniques that have been central to his work since the early 1970s, Tate drops his clown's mask long enough for readers to see real tears, while intentional cliches and linguistic puns drive home the point that he is not alone in his agony.
- Ro chelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan (November 19, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819521892
• ISBN-13: 978-0819521897
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,873,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Resonant and resolute, December 19, 1999

By 

Mr Reed - See all my reviews

This review is from: Distance from Loved Ones (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

James Tate is not a surrealist; he is a lyric poet with an imagination. Because the imagination has been on trial in this country for the past decade, people label anything the least bit odd "surrealist" when they don't understand what they're trying to confront or when they're afraid of what the imagination, when presented by someone as brilliant as Tate, can unleash.

The title poem is one of many effective, poignant, and tender poems in this book. While not Tate's funniest or strangest collection, Distance from Loved Ones is emotionally charged and completely without pretense. It contains half a dozen of the best poets written by an American in the past 20 years.

5.0 out of 5 stars Proximity to Himself, August 6, 2008

By 

Christopher B. Murray (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Distance from Loved Ones (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

This is James Tate's best book of poetry. It's very telling that the author of the review that has the corny pun in its title admits that this book is too real for him. Tate uses his "surrealism" to approach reality, to attempt to bridge the distance he feels from loved ones, or from himself. He explores the world around him--real, or imagined--by describing it, by cataloguing its details, by recording the absurd, mundane, or tragic events that transpire. He shares his uncompromising vision of the world around him (and/or inside him) however disturbing his findings may be. The speakers of the poems are often engaged in an almost desperate quest to connect with another, as in the poem "Peggy in the Twilight." However, as in that poem, the speaker's efforts to find satisfaction or love are thwarted: Peggy, the tragic and lovable beauty the speaker meets at a party, turns out to be a figment of his imagination. The host informs him, "There's no one here by that name." The poet explains: "And so my love life began." Most of the poems appear absurd or comic initially ("Peggy spent half of each day trying to wake up, and/ the other half preparing for sleep."), but, on closer examination, one finds that these poems are filled with yearning, anxiety, curiousity, terror, hilarity, courage, technical ingenuity, and a deep insight into the world we inhabit and the relationships we struggle to forge or preserve. The humor, playfulness, and risk-taking in Tate's best poems often prevents readers from appreciating the depth of these works. Tate was in top form when he published this collection in the early 1990's.

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Small "tate-ers" for a poet of his caliber., November 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Distance from Loved Ones (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

James Tate's most recent offering, "Distance from Loved Ones," hit bookstores recently, after much hype and anticipation. Up to this point, I had suspended my judgment on the pernicious poet, but now I no longer straddle the fence on this issue. The title poem promises insight and melancholy, but quickly strays into a graphic erotic narrative involving his last several pets (all of which died mysterious deaths). The associative peregrinations he offers attempt to travel the road between the heart and the mind but never make it past his throbbing libido. I understand that he is a "surrealist," but this slab of perversions is much too real for me. Tate is an unholy cross between Neitzche and Andy Griffith, and frankly, the only way you may possibly glean something from this tour de FARCE is if you don your standard issue goth trenchcoat and hit the local coffee house.