POETRY IN REVIEW

1 6 1 R P O E T R Y I N R E V I E W A B I G A I L D E U T S C H In the striking fables of James Tate, strangers appear out of nowhere . One falls from a tree, another emerges from an alley, a third pops up in the middle of a living room: ‘‘You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here,’’ he said. ‘‘Well, I am, too. I was flying along at a good speed, a bit low, mind you, when I seem to have entered your crawl space, or whatever it’s called. There was no way out, so I used my teeth. I mean, I had to chew my way out, if you see what I mean.’’ ‘‘I don’t at all see what you mean. How could you be flying so low? And what were you flying in?’’ I said. ‘‘Yes, yes. These are questions I have been asking myself,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t have any answers?’’ I said. ‘‘No, I don’t have any answers,’’ he said. [‘‘Low Flying’’] Tate’s high-velocity poems o√er no answers, either, though as they zip along into our crawl spaces, plenty of questions arise: Why the D o m e o f t h e H i d d e n P a v i l i o n , by James Tate (Ecco, 142 pp., $25.99) 1 6 2 D E U T S C H Y teeth? How the flight? What is that fellow doing there, not only acknowledging the oddness of his arrival but also implying that the narrator’s situation is odd – that his house is in fact a crawl space? And finally, what does it all mean? We won’t ever know, exactly, and that tension is part of the point. The poems in Dome of the Hidden Pavilion – the final book by the prolific Tate, who died earlier last year at seventy-one – boast a twitchy energy, and reading them is as surprising and nerve-racking as riding a rambunctious horse: they try to throw you o√. They twist, wriggle, bolt, and constantly shift direction; they zig-zag from one logical intimation to its opposite, from grimness to inanity, from logic to insanity: When Roberta came home from the hospital she had tears in her eyes. I grabbed her and kissed her. ‘‘What happened?’’ I said. ‘‘He died,’’ she said. ‘‘Who died?’’ I said. ‘‘The doctor. When he entered Mother’s room he was so startled he had a heart attack,’’ she said. ‘‘I don’t understand. What startled him?’’ I said. ‘‘Mother. She had grown nine feet tall, and her face is all contorted. She’s really quite frightening,’’ she said. ‘‘Isn’t there anything they can do for her?’’ I said. ‘‘All the medicines they have given her are tearing her apart. They are anxious for her to die, but she seems to just keep getting stronger. They are at an utter loss as to what to do next,’’ she said. [‘‘A Largely Questioning Article O√ering Few Answers’’] Tate immediately cancels every narrative implication he proposes: we assume ‘‘he died’’ refers to a relative, but instead it refers to the doctor; we assume the doctor died of a bodily trauma, but instead he died of fear; we assume the mother is ill, but instead she’s horrifyingly well; we assume the doctors are providing medicines to cure their patient, but instead they want to kill her. This poem doesn’t just surprise us by upending our expectations – it alerts us to those expectations, illuminating our orientation toward the everyday by tirelessly challenging it. Tate is a master of the absurd and of the conventional; his poems place these forces in constant juxtaposition. Speakers note P O E T R Y I N R E V I E W 1 6 3 R bizarre visions and events, then behave as though nothing at all unusual has occurred: immediately after one narrator discovers that a man he’s been observing is, in fact, a gigantic doll, ‘‘I / stood up and brushed my collar and went to...