Volume 10 87
whether we will be able to rekindle (“start a little
fire”) the connection between him as poet and us as
readers. There may also be a less apparent reference
here, one hidden within the statement, “I don’t
know.” Perhaps the speaker does not know why he
is even trying to please us, why he struggles so to
appease an audience that will likely remain aloof
and unappreciative. Regardless of the implication,
the speaker continues to “keep working, working,”
determined not to stop writing—or, to carry the
metaphor through, not to give up trying to pry open
the casket with a burning snowflake.
Lines 11-12:
The last two lines of “Dear Reader”—“half hat-
ing you, / half eaten by the moon”—are, essentially,
half understandable and half vague. The
poet/speaker has already established the notion of a
love-hate relationship with his readers, fluctuating
between frantically trying to reach us and mock-
ingly putting forth the effort of a snowflake on fire.
Line 11, therefore, is clear: the poet hates his read-
ers, but not completely. His feelings of animosity
stem from the pressure to “produce” for us, to cre-
ate poetry that we will read and, hopefully, appre-
ciate. The possibility of achieving that keeps him
from walking away from the work altogether. Line
12 is Tate insisting the reader “think about words,
not about content,” as mentioned above. The moon
plays no real part in this poem because there is no
reference to it throughout and, more importantly, it
is unlikely that the moon would “appear” during a
blizzard—in the sky orin the poem. Nonetheless,
it is there, but why the poet is “half eaten” by it is
unclear, and intentionally so. Perhaps he feels so in-
adequate in his efforts that even this heavenly body
is a foe, eating away at his confidence. Perhaps
moonis just an overused cliche in so much poetry
that Tate drops it in here as another tongue-in-cheek
move. And perhaps it is just a phrase that sounds
“poetic” and defies analysis altogether. Whatever
the impetus behind its inclusion, is typifies this
poet’s typical “play” with language.
Themes
Surrealism
Surrealismrefers to artistic or literary works
that attempt to express subconscious thoughts
through the use of fantastic imagery and incongru-
ous juxtaposition of subject matter. Many of James
Tate’s poems are grounded in surrealistic and
bizarre settings, including “Dear Reader.” The most
obvious juxtaposition of subjects in this poem is
the notion of prying open a casket with a burning
snowflake. Certainly, the idea of a “burning
snowflake” itself is not only unrealistic, but phys-
ically impossible. We could dismiss this conflict as
simply a touch of sarcasm to express how much the
speaker is notattempting to pry the casket open,
but just the presence of a coffin—and, therefore,
death—introduces a macabre, surreal element into
it. Tate’s speaker is not perplexed by his situation
and his dilemma. Rather, he too expresses strange
desires and exhibits freakish behavior. In the
reader-as-corpse metaphor, he contemplates rub-
bing the hands of the dead person in order to bring
back life in the same manner we may rub two sticks
or stones together to spark a fire. He describes him-
self as working feverishly in a surreal scene, per-
haps in a cemetery where a sealed coffin stands in
the open, and snow, sleet, and the moon comple-
ment the eerie setting.Surrealism and fantastic imagery in this poem
are effective devices that make the poet’s point. If
he were to forsake metaphor in favor of “plain
talk,” he would, ironically, end up with a poem that
drives readers even further away, making our cas-
kets even more difficult to pry open, so to speak.
Take away the figures of speech from this poem
and it would read something like, “Dear Reader,
you do not seem to like or read my work anymore,
no matter how I slave over it, but I will keep try-
ing to write something that pleases you because I
crave your attention.” Obviously, the poem needs
strong imagery to keep it from lapsing into mere
pathos.Loneliness and Despair
Loneliness and despair are common themes in
James Tate’s work, and he is capable of packing
quite a few melancholy, depressing thoughts into a
short poem such as “Dear Reader.” In spite of the
gloomy tendencies, however, he is not a poet who
gives in to despair. Instead, he usually finds a way
to introduce a comedic effect or to incorporate such
odd language pairings that we are distracted from
the hopelessness by curiosity and amusement. In
“Dear Reader,” the very first line sets a despondent
tone. But the about-face comes quickly here, as the
poet resorts to a snide, yet whimsical, remark about
a snowflake on fire. The rest of the poem is not so
easily rescued from despair, but settles into a nag-
ging sense of loneliness and disheartenment that is
overcome only by the speaker’s decision to “keep
working, working.” Even thatnotion is somethingDear Reader