Reviews for Memoir of the Hawk: Poems

The average rating for Memoir of the Hawk: Poems based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-10-08 00:00:00 Richard Leathers Ideally, for me, at least, this book--along with his others--would be better read at the rate of one poem per day. Even the shortest Tate piece is immense and needs time to settle in. But with one poem per page in this 175 page book, I'd never be able to contain myself to only one a day. So, instead, I did the next best thing: read it in two days! This is a magnificent offering from Tate. The poems here are perhaps a bit shorter than those in some of his other books. Not a bad thing, by any means, as length means nothing to Tate or, say, Russell Edson. My favorites are: Carl's Shoes, The New Love Slave, and Duel To The Death. And the best part of this whole book?: The handwritten signature of James Tate, himself, on the title page!

Review # 2 was written on 2008-02-12 00:00:00 Jackson Nash James Tate is one strange dude. His poems are peculiarly surreal, or magic realist, or merely absurd, and they seek out a place where humor meets dream. Check out this one: New Blood A 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.