Synopses & Reviews
Memoir of the Hawk creates a world populated by hundreds of characters, believable and strange, tugged at the edges by the unexpected. In the privacy of their homes, who can save them from themselves? In the forests and hills and on the beautiful lakes, what could possibly be wrong? Even in the sweet hometown, with its kindly police, menace lurks in a thousand disguises. Mystery and magic surround this metropolis of the imagination. Once again, James Tate has given us a world of surprising pleasures:
... lost in the interstellar space between teacups in the cupboard, found in the beak of a downy woodpecker, the lovers staring into the void and then jumping over it, flying into their beautiful tomorrows like the heroes of a storm.
Synopsis
New BloodA huge lizard was discovered drinking
out of the fountain today. It was not menacing
anyone, it was just very thirsty. A small crowd
gathered and whispered to one another, as though
the lizard would understand them if they spoke
in normal voices. The lizard seemed not even
a little perturbed by their gathering. It drank
and drank, its long forked tongue was like a red
river hypnotizing the people, keeping them in a
trance-like state. "It's like a different town,"
one of them whispered. "Change is good," the
other one whispered back.
About the Author
James Tate was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1943. He is the author ofMemoir of the Hawk (2001); Shroud of the Gnome(1997); Worshipful Company of Fletchers (1994), which won the National Book Award; Selected Poems (1991), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award for Poetry; Distance from Loved Ones (1990); Reckoner (1986); Constant Defender (1983); Riven Doggeries (1979); Viper Jazz (1976); Absences (1972); Hints to Pilgrims (1971); The Oblivion Ha-Ha (1970); and The Lost Pilot (1967), which was selected by Dudley Fitts for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He is also the author of three books of prose, including a collection of stories, Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee, and the editor of The Best American Poetry 1997. His many honors include the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.