Allen Tate
Allen Tate
John Orley Allen Tate, known professionally as Allen Tate, was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and Poet Laureate from 1943 to 1944...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth19 November 1899
CountryUnited States of America
Allen Tate quotes about
heart panthers innocence
The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!
change believe keys
I believe the term modulation denotes in music the uninterrupted shift from one key to another: I do not know the term for change of rhythm without change of measure.
perfect interesting want
So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.
detachment theory has-beens
Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.
hard-times mind use
For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.
friendship silence gathering
Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing; the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear; and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.
talking knowing poet
In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.
religion technique sole
Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.
ambition doctors desire
According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for.
twilight dark sailing
There's precious little to say between day and dark, Perhaps a few words on the implacable will Of time sailing like a magic barque Or something as fine for the amenities....
nursery cheat conceit
So the dubbed conceit Played nursery of cheat To clear the I of sleet....
dying not-afraid
We are afraid that we have not lived. We are not afraid of dying.
loss roots feet
Our loss put six feet under ground Is measured by the magnolia's root; Our gain's the intellectual sound Of death's feet round a weedy tomb.
heart love-is midnight
I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.