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Distance from Loved Ones (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

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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.

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.

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.