Allen Tate

Allen Tate

John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979) was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1944.

Read more about Allen Tate:  Life, Literary Work, Political Writing

Famous quotes by allen tate:

    By the roadside a hideous carrion, quivering
    On a clean bed of pebbly clay,
    Her legs flexed in the air like a courtesan,
    Burning and sweating venomously,
    Calmly exposed its belly, ironic and wan,
    Clamorous with foul ecstasy.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    The river, right, tumbled into a cove;
    But the map dashed the road along the stream
    And we dotted man’s fishiest enthymeme
    With jellied feet upon understanding love
    Of what eyes see not, that nourishes the will:
    We were fishers, weren’t we?
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    because your clamorous blood
    Beats an impermanent rest
    You think the dead arise
    Westward and fabulous:
    The dead are those whose lies
    Were doors to a narrow house.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    Of how he loved high laughter and the lonely
    Heart, and cursed a dissipated rime
    Of weariness in a golden morning, only
    To rouse a cold Helen where the dawn distils
    Her bewildered beauty on feet-forgotten hills.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    Men expect too much, do too little,
    Put the contraption before the accomplishment,
    Lack skill of the interior mind
    To fashion dignity with shapes of air.
    Luxury, yes but not elegance!
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)