Book Launch Party & Reading by James Tate
The MFA Program for Poets and Writers invites you to a reading by James Tate and reception to celebrate the publication of his new book of poems, Return to the City of White Donkeys. (Ecco Press, 2004). A book-signing and reception will follow.
A professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers since 1971, James Tate has been awarded many of contemporary letters most prestigious honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and Wallace Stevens Award. Currently a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, he was recently elected a lifetime member of the Academy of American Arts and Letters, becoming the second University of Massachusetts professor—James Baldwin was the first—to be so honored. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, including “Memoir of the Hawk” (Ecco Press, 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; “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 has also published a novel, “Lucky Darryl” (1977), and a collection of short stories, “Hottentot Ossuary” (1974), and edited “The Best American Poetry 1997”.