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How the Pope Is Chosen (audio only)

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James Tate
1943 –
2015

Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.

James Tate
Photo credit: Andrea Holland

The author of numerous collections of poetry, James Tate's collection Selected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award

About James Tate
Themes
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More by this poet

The Glassy Harbor

O faint sad noises
and milky dullness,

rose-colored blindness
in evening gowns

how moist and rhythmic
those who walk near

the glassy harbor.
Silent drift of deserters

from the theater,
and everywhere the stars

James Tate
1976

Go Youth

I was in a dreamstate and this was causing a problem
with the traffic. I felt lonely, like I’d missed the boat,
or I’d found the boat and it was deserted. In the middle
of the road a child’s shoe glistened. I walked around it.
It woke me up a little. The child had disappeared. Some
mysteries are better left alone. Others are dreary, distasteful,

James Tate
1994

The Ice Cream Man

I answered the ad in the paper. I had been unemployed for
nine months and was desperate. At the interview, the man said,
“Do you have much experience climbing tall mountains?” “Absolutely.
I climb them all the time. If I see a tall mountain, I have to
climb it immediately,” I said. “What about swimming long distances
in rough ocean waters, perhaps in a storm?” he said. “I’m like

James Tate
2008

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