| Title | : | The Ghost Soldiers |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0061436941 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780061436949 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 |
| Publication | : | First published March 25, 2008 |
| Awards | : | Massachusetts Book Award Poetry (2009) |
The Ghost Soldiers Reviews
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I closed the book, put my jacket on, and headed downtown. Waiting for the cross signal, an old man looked at me. "You look like you've just been through a war," he said. I looked at my reflection in the tinted windows of a passing Cadillac. I looked the straight-faced man of thirty that I was, but every hair was in place. "I've just finished reading The Ghost Soldiers," I said. "Even for prose poems, they weren't very poetic. More like Italo Calvino's fables. Flash fables." "Perhaps they weren't poetic, but were they prophetic?" he said. "Listen, I can't worry about that now. I'm supposed to give a lecture on anti-war novels to the punks down at CBGB's," I said. "I've got a couple of sick grand-children to get home. I'm waiting for them to be dismissed from school now," he said. I thought of all the strange old folks of Hyrule and Ultima. How all of their non-sequiturs come back eventually.
"Here comes one of them now," he said. I saw a small boy trotting toward us in the same direction as the car with the tinted-windows, which was coming back our way. The boy crossed the street and the car turned the corner and hit him. The driver got out of the car. He wore aviators and had a wire in his ear. He knelt down to the boy and felt for a pulse. He was dead. The driver pointed at me. "His wild hair drove me to distraction!" he said. People began to stare. I smoothed my hair down self-consciously. I swallowed hard and looked at the old man. He said, "listen, young man. When you've lived as long as I have, you learn that hair's got nothing to do with it." -
a reread of what may be my favourite tate collection. Why's it my favourite? Because it's long, there's more of him
he cannot help but be the icon
2022:
My first proper brush with James Tate and The Ghost Soldiers is ridiculous in all sorts of ways. There's the practical consideration of this being Tate's fifteenth (!!) collection and it's two hundred pages long. It's rare for a poem in it to be under a page in length as well. He's a busy hand.
He's rather an idiosyncratic fellow but surprisingly the closest comparison I could make is Jack Underwood who I have little doubt is in various ways influenced by JT (Justin Timberlake). I find JU (Jammer's Union) more amenable myself but it's tempting to read JT (Jezebel Tendencies) as a kind of raw material. That's a disservice but I'm in circles.
Just had a brief glance at the reviews here to confirm my suspicions that people are whining about whether this is Really Poetry as if that isn't a tired debate. (get over ). I think the blurb hedges its bets and calls this prose poetry which it kind of is but it's probably more accurate to call it one hundred or so Americana-Paranoiac microfictions but aren't we absolutely sick of these labels. Here's another- it's very funny I was amused and came round to it after my initial concerns. I shall read more Tate he's a warm soul -
New books by James Tate are always worth attention. This one, though, seems special. He’s found a resonant center for his flights of narrative: War. Meanderings within a framework of war seem especially resonant for Tate. In much the way that personal tragedy took Mary Jo Bang’s attention into a sphere that many consider to be her strongest work, Elegy (though I think I’ll always be partial to Louise in Love, myself), so too does national tragedy seem to have dragged Tate up into a cultural connectivity that will, I believe, connect with a lot of people. I fully expect this book to be on the award lists for next year. It’s large. And, well, large: 217 pages.
See if you agree:
The War Next Door
I thought I saw some victims of the last war bandaged and
limping through the forest beside my house. I thought I recognized
some of them, but I wasn’t sure. It was kind of a hazy dream
from which I tried to wake myself, but they were still there,
bloody, some of them on crutches, some lacking limbs. This sad
parade went on for hours. I couldn’t leave the window. Finally,
I opened the door. “Where are you going?” I shouted. “We’re
just trying to escape,” one of them shouted back. “But the war’s
over,” I said. “No it’s not,” one said. All the news reports had
said it had been over for days. I didn’t know who to trust. It’s
best to just ignore them, I told myself. They’ll go away. So I
went into the living room and picked up a magazine. There was a
picture of a dead man. He had just passed my house. And another
dead man I recognized. I ran back in the kitchen and looked out.
A group of them were headed my way. I opened the door. “Why
didn’t you fight with us?” they said. “I didn’t know who the
enemy was, honest, I didn’t,” I said. “That’s a fine answer. I
never did figure it out myself,” one of them said. The others looked
at him as if he were crazy. “The other side was the enemy, obviously,
the ones with the beady eyes,” said another. “They were mean,”
another said, “terrible.” “One was very kind to me, cradled me
in his arms,” said one. “Well, you’re all dead now. A lot of
good that will do you,” I said. “We’re just gaining our strength
back,” one of them said. I shut the door and went back in the
living room. I heard scratches at the window at first, but then
they faded off. I heard a bugle in the distance, then the roar of
a cannon. I still don’t know which side I was on. -
Poems, it says on the front of the dust jacket. I'm not so sure. Maybe fables? Modern fairy tales? Where's the music? Where's the compression of thought? There are not enough diamonds in this rough. I think the old emperor might be missing a piece or two of clothing.
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I opened The Ghost Soldiers without expecting anything more than words on pages. That attitude allowed me to fall down the rabbit hole with the first few syllables. The poems are vignettes, still, mostly prose-like poems, kind of like a book of short stories in which none of the stories are developed the way stories need to be developed, which leaves them as prose poems. Each piece is about people we never know. Reading this book is kind of like driving through the neighborhood when the sky grows dark and looking into people's windows to see what their world is like, knowing full-well you have no idea what their world is like by looking through their front window.
I got really into the collection, writing down the names of the poems I really liked, and then I realized I really liked a lot of them. Then I came to the second half and everything kind of melded into one blurry world and I couldn't find the beginnings and endings. At which point, I became slightly tired of the magical Tate world. In fact, I began to diagnose him as schizophrenic. Perhaps that's the point of the book. -
Finally.
I must say, I'm being a little generous with two stars. Several (or perhaps, even all) of these poems are extraordinary, but 50 pages would have been probably been enough to digest. It was more than 200 pages. It's like watching an evening of 5- to 10-minute long abstract David Lynch shorts - for four hours. By the time I was in the last 25 pages, I was just reading to finish. Again, it's a shame, because several of the poems I read were, as I mentioned above, really quite extraordinary.
(Erin, this was my 'The Corrections'.) -
I've always been a big fan of prose poetry, and I wanted to like these poems more than I did. I hesitate to even call them poems as they're more like a series of vaguely related short stories. "Poems about nothing" is quite an apt description.
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Perfection, pure alchemy. James Tate is an incredible writer, I loved every piece.
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This book is a proper study in the use of surrealism to address crimes against humanity--big and small. From war to forgetting to sharing space on an airplane, Tate examines all the ways that being human I disorienting and dismantling. Some of my favorite moments:
The roan looked like it had grown a horn in its forehead.
more. I often wonder where they are going at such tremendous speed. Our sun’s going to go out in twenty-five billion years, what then?
And so the afternoon passed into evening, and in the evening I sewed a button on my shirt, and felt really good about that.
I called her My Princess, to make up for my shortcomings, and she never forgave me. Birdseed was her middle name.
The starry sky, the police hiding in the bushes, God, it’s good to be alive, I think, and pee behind my car in the darkness of my own private darkness.
I said I didn’t want any help from anyone, but, then, when no one offered to help, I was really hurt. -
There's no better way to start your day than with a little Tate over morning coffee. Taters, precious, love me taters. Only reason it scores 3 instead of 4 is that I've read one of his books before, and there's a lot of crossover material. Tate seems to follow the age old mantra of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Hard to argue with that. Everyone needs a little more Tate in their life.
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Honestly, a lot of this didn't speak to me, but I liked a few very much :
TREASON
The man that was following me looked like a government agent, so I turned around and walked up to him and said, “Why are you following me?” He said, “I’m not following you. I’m
an insurance agent walking to work.” “Well, pardon me, my mistake,” I said. “Have you done something wrong, unpatriotic,
or are you just paranoid?” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong, certainly not unpatriotic, and I’m not paranoid,” I said.
“Well, nobody’s ever mistaken me for a government agent before,” he said. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You have something weighing
down on your conscience, don’t you?” he said. “No, I don’t.
I’m just vigilant,” I said. “Like a good criminal,” he said.
“Would you stop talking to me like that,” I said. “I don’t want
to have anything to do with you.” “You’ve committed some kind of treason and they’re going to get you,” he said. “You’re out
of your mind,” I said. “Benedict Arnold, that’s who you are,”
he said. “I’m going to a peace rally if that’s okay with you,”
I said. “Oh, a peacenik. That’s the same as treason,” he said.
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “Yes it is,” he said. “No.” “Yes.”
“No.” “Yes.” We reached his office door. “I really hate to
say good-bye to you. Would you like to have lunch tomorrow?”
he said. “I’d be delighted,” I said. “Good. Then Sadie’s
Café at noon,” he said. “Noon at Sadie’s,” I said.
NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS
“Nothing is what it seems.” Morgan had said this to me
the other day. It sounded profound, but I doubted the true
wisdom of it. I mean, I know there is a lot of illusion in
the world, but the shoe store is still the shoe store, my razor
is just a razor, my hat is a hat. Morgan had probably been reading
a Zen book. He’s like that, goes off on these weird jags and
comes spouting off to me. I don’t mind it. It gives me some-
thing to think about. Once he told me that ghosts were real,
and that I shouldn’t be afraid of them because they are terribly lonely and just want company. I said I had never seen a ghost,
and he said I wasn’t looking in the right way. He never told
me what the right way was. I suspect it involves a spectrofluorometer, and I don’t have one. But neither does Morgan. I like
to sit out and watch the stars at night. There are billions in
the Milky Way. Of course we can only see a few thousand, and that is plenty for me. Every now and then one of them falls, out of hydrogen after twenty-five billion years or more. I often wonder where they are going at such tremendous speed. Our sun’s
going to go out in twenty-five billion years, what then?
DUCT-TAPE CELEBRATION
I had lots of duct tape, but I never used it. I bought
more just in case. I thought sure an occasion would arise.
I kept looking around. I said to Tracy, “Would you mind if
I covered you in duct tape?” “Just a little bit on the wrist,”
she said. “Thank you,” I said. I felt much better. “There’s
no telling what’s going to happen next,” she said. “What do you mean?” I said. “A satellite fell on the Episcopal Church,” she
said. “That’s unfortunate,” I said. “Was anybody hurt?” “Mrs. Graves was there. She thinks it was heaven-sent. She was sneaking a cracker at the time,” she said. I took a piece of tape and
stuck it on her back. “Well, I’m just glad she’s all right,” I
said. “She’s psychotic. You know that,” she said. I took a
piece of tape and stuck it in her hair. “She’s a harmless, old lady who’s afraid of goblins,” I said. “She thinks all children are
goblins. She’s going to kill one one day,” she said. “Andy’s
boa constrictor escaped last night,” I said. “Who’s Andy?” she
said. “He’s the manager at Ace’s Hardware Store. I thought you knew him,” I said. “Never been to Ace’s Hardware Store,” she said. “It’s a wonderful place,” I said. “What the hell was he doing with
a boa constrictor?” she said. “Kept his house free of pigs,”
I said. “Well, that makes sense,” she said. I reached over
and put a piece of tape on her butt. She was looking pretty
good by now.
WAYLON’S WOMAN
Loretta had a rooster that was so fierce nobody could visit her anymore. Loretta loved
that rooster, and the rooster loved Loretta,
thought she was his wife. So the only time
we got to see Loretta was when she came to town. We’d meet her at Mike’s Westview Café and drink beer with her all night. The rooster’s name
was Waylon, and she’d talk about Waylon all
night, and if you didn’t know better you’d think
she was talking about her husband. Well, I knew better, and I still thought she was talking about
her husband. “Waylon wasn’t feeling very good
this morning.” “Waylon was real sweet to me
last night.” “Waylon is so handsome, sometimes
I just can’t take my eyes off him.” She’s still
fun to be with, and she seems completely normal
to me. At closing time, we say our good-byes,
and I kiss Loretta, just a little peck, because
I know she is married to a chicken, and I respect that. Waylon has made her happy in ways I never could. The starry sky, the police hiding in the bushes, God, it’s good to be alive, I think, and
pee behind my car in the darkness of my own private darkness.
HOUSEFLY
The fly was big and fast and, seemingly, smarter than
me. It would fly right in front of my eyes, and, when
I’d try to chase it, it would land on a crystal vase, or
some other favorite object that I could not possibly swat.
After a while, you feel like an idiot. So, then, I’d decide
to ignore it. I’d pick up my magazine and start to read.
That’s when the audacious little monster had the temerity
to actually land on the tip of my nose. It felt like all-out
warfare had been declared. I shooed him away from my nose and began stalking him in earnest. He dive-bombed me several times, then flew from room to room to room. Each time he rested on a window, I thought I had him. But my swats never even came close. He’d buzz my eyes in triumphant glory, then disappear without a trace. I was exhausted and angry. That
this lowly piece of insect garbage could outwit me time and again was inconceivable. The fly has conquered my entire domain. I am its prisoner. It has proven its point. It
is the superior creature. It spreads disease, malaria and
yellow fever. It sucks blood from sick animals and infects healthy ones. There are seventy-five thousand varieties of
flies. But this one, no doubt, is the common housefly. I
drag my ball and chain to a chair and collapse. The fly is gloating atop a bust of Beethoven. What if someone is watching us? I would be the laughingstock of all time. Even my
friends would abuse me. I would go down in legend. I would become the brunt of a folktale. The fly landed on an oil painting of my mother. It was standing on her eye. There was no end to its cruel taunts. It walked across her lips.
She had raised me to be a man, to stand up on my own. I could climb a mountain. I could use a gun. Once I had been forced to wrestle a cougar to save a baby’s life. And,
now, I was pinned down and humiliated by a fly. The fly was a genius, and a devil to boot. I couldn’t give up. I had
to fight on. Family honor was at stake. So much had been
lost already. I pulled myself up and took a step toward him.
He was watching me. He was grinding his teeth and twitching all over. I could feel my strength coming back. He took off
and was coming right at me. I swung the swatter as fast as
I could and missed him. Then, the chase pursued, from room
to room, and several missed swings. A touch of madness had come over me as I knocked over chairs and broke several price- less items. I no longer cared. I had one mission. Now the
fly was frightened of me. It realized it had gone too far.
Walking on my mother’s lips was not funny. It regretted that.
He had thought it was all a game. Sure, he had won, but fair’s fair. Now, his life was in the balance, with this madman enraged. It’s such a short life when you’re a common housefly. Nobody likes you. Nobody wants to have fun. -
I think I'll call this Tate's magnum opus. Each poem is a different character wandering in the broken sensibilities of his or her own making. Like dreams, in this book the speakers walk out of their front doors to find themselves in alien landscapes they insist are familiar. Exploring this insistence is Tate's gift. Simic calls this anti-poetry (he means it, I believe, in a nice way). There are over ninety poems here, each a different personae, a different name, a newly fabricated situation in orderly chaos. A representative poem might be "The Deep Zone." A little taste: "[...]A man in a green suit tried / to sell me a car made out of possum skulls. I was covered with / leeches, but I didn't mind. [...] I fell through a hole in the water / and landed in the back of a Chinese laundry, where I've been / working ever since."
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2.5 to 3. Some poems really do leave a strange lasting effect on the reader. That said, half of it feels like it's just trying to get at something and simply fails. I appreciate Tate's imagination and preoccupation for unexplained occurrences, yet many of these "prose poems" lack lyricism and read much like conversational essays/straight narratives. I appreciate surreal poetry, but most of it is disconnected from any sense of urgency and tends to drag. Not to undermine the power of common speech mimicked in poetry, but I believe there has to be a balance between rambling speech and compelling, poetic language. At his best, Tate manages to bring readers somewhere unexpected.
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One hundred surrealist prose poems. They read like dreams. The names of the characters are unimportant. One person blends into another. The landscape changes. The narrative unfolds through dialog. The common factor among them all is a sense of powerlessness. Something, somebody is controlling the drama. Whether it be the war-machine, a secretive corporate agency, God, a dreamer--we are all stuck in a time and place, unable to determine what to do, where to find safety, who to trust. Brilliant but numbing.
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This was my first experience with James Tate, and wow, I am impressed! I don't remember how this book fell into my lap. Most likely, I fell in love with the cover. I was unfamiliar with Tate's poetry before this book, so I wasn't really expecting such narrative fables. But wow! Again, I really enjoyed these war poems, some of which left a lasting impression on me. Looking forward to reading more of his work!
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Some of the better poetry I've read in the past year. It's so unusual. Sometimes I get spooked by what he writes and have to stop and walk around a bit. It's not that he writes about something scary or morbid, but you get this feeling of something immense hovering around you, in your presence. It's as if he's conjuring a ghost through the writing.
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Didn't mind the absurdism of the poems. It's just the writing that I hated. The poems were really more prose, like dream fables with SOOO MUCH dialogue that bogs down the feeling/emotion of the poems. Not really how I like reading poetry/prose free verse/whatever. Struggled to finish this one.
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Think this is a better anti-war poem book than "Poets against the War." In its own way.
(Not that the details are there--but the abstract emotions, very realistic.) -
this is crazy good
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Captivating exercises of creative writing in the form of short stories. Not a single poem was found in this book.
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There probably couldn't be a poet more suited to evoking our moment than James Tate. Tate's poems (almost deceptively straight prose microfictions, really) deliver paranoid, absurdist, often cuttingly hilarious, renditions of our world as both farce and tragedy.
Not to be read in a hurry, these poems are best enjoyed in bursts of five or six at a time, letting them do their slyly unsettling work. -
An absolute pleasure these, uhh...surreal tragicomedies(?)...were to read. Whatever we might want to call these funky little creations, Tate managed to have me both bursting out in laughter and meditating on the complex oddity of modern life. These weird little narratives take place in an off-axis version of our own world, one that is somehow almost shockingly altered and completely recognizable at the same time. The absurdity of these poems belie a powerful, poignant social commentary that builds upon itself with each page. I found myself incredibly moved by the end, and wondering, is not our current reality the stranger, more ridiculous place?? I think James Tate had something serious to say, or, rather, many serious things to say, and that he found a strange joy in the saying. That, I think, is an incredible accomplishment. What a seriously beautiful weirdo. Yes.
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Paranoid and claustrophobic. Imagine if someone made "The Parking Lot is Full" into two minute stories. Pick a random page and try.
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Super great, intriguing poems written almost as stories / stories written as poems.
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These poems seem to add up into a narrative about a doomed Midwestern small town; I loved "The Underbelly" and "The Package For Peter Haggerty."
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Great book
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I loved reading these witty and surprising poems out loud to my husband
