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:

    the quicksilver art
    Throws back the invisible but lightning mass
    To inhabit the room; for I have seen it part
    The palpable air....
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    Ah, Christ, I love you rings to the wild sky
    And I must think a little of the past:
    When I was ten I told a stinking lie
    That got a black boy whipped....
    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)

    And I have seen long fingers that would stare
    With fiery eyes, and then the eyes would crawl
    Deftly across the counterpane and fall
    Soundless, with a wink of mild despair.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    And there is nothing in the eye,
    Shut shutter of the mineral man
    Who takes the fatherless dark to bed,
    The acid sky to the brain-pan;
    And calls the crows to peck his head.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)