PSB Presents: April's Poet of the Month!

JAMES TATE

James Tate. James Tate. James Tate. Did we mention James Tate? Porter Square Books is very proud to present James Tate as April's Poet of the Month!

Currently teaching English at the University of Massachusetts, this renowned poet is the author of several award-winning books such as The Lost Pilot (1967), Constant Defender (1983), Worshipful Company of Fletchers (1994), Return to the City of the White Donkey (2004), The Ghost Soldiers: Poems (2008), and many more.

Just as acclaimed, as he is prolific, James Tate also has been the recipient of numerous awards including the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Poetry, the Wallace Stevens Award, a 1995 Tanning Prize, and a number of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2001, he was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Here's what fellow poet, John Ashbery, had to say about him: "Local color plays a role, but the main event is the poet's wrestling with passing moments, frantically trying to discover the poetry there and to preserve it, perishable as it is. Tate is the poet of possibilities, of morph, of surprising consequences, lovely or disastrous, and these phenomena exist everywhere... I return to Tate's books more often perhaps than to any others when I want to be reminded afresh of the possibilities of poetry."

Don't forget to check out our in-store display on the work of James Tate! Oh, and if you'd like to hear the poet read one of his poems, click HERE for a free mp3 download. Enjoy!