Hell, I Love Everybody: The Essential James Tate: Poems

An essential collection of James Tate’s extraordinary poems that will captivate today’s readers, with a foreword by Terrance Hayes

Celebrating James Tate’s work as it transcends convention, time, and everything that tells us, “No, you can’t do that,” Hell, I Love Everybody gives us the poet at his best, his most intimate, hopeful, inventive, and brilliant. John Ashbery called Tate the “poet of possibilities,” and this collection records forays into possibilities for American poetry’s future. With a foreword by Terrance Hayes, it is sure to give readers new and old a lasting collection of favorites.

Enter a world where the mundane and the mythic collide—often with hilarious and heartbreaking results.

• Surrealist Poetry: Meet an extraterrestrial who just wants to see a real cowboy, a policeman with a goat named the Prince of Peace, and a dog who keeps coming back from the dead.
• Absurdist Humor: Discover a candy store where stickups are against the rules, a man who can’t get his couch through a restaurant door, and the proper way to choose a new Pope (it involves a 7-Eleven).
• Deadpan Voice: Tate’s signature conversational, matter-of-fact style makes even the most bizarre events feel strangely, movingly familiar.
• The Poet of Possibilities: A collection that showcases why John Ashbery called him a master of invention, creating worlds where anything can, and frequently does, happen.

"The poems of James Tate will keep speaking to people for a very long time into the future, because they never stop caring and never stop having fun. They are, to my ear, lovely verbal reminders that everything should be regarded as mysterious and dear." - George Saunders, author of Liberation Day and Lincoln in the Bardo

“A brilliant collection of poems from one of the most singular minds ever to have graced the page. Not only does this book exemplify Tate's unmatched imagination, but it also celebrates his intelligence, tenderness, and attention. This book is an absolute must-read for any poetry lover.”  - Ada Limón, author of The Carrying and Bright Dead Things

"Quintessential poems by virtuoso of absurdity Tate are woven into a whimsical, rollicking, and utterly jarring retrospective that showcases an unparalleled mind...Tenacious, surreal, impish, and soul mending, these poems invite the reader into a transcendent world." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"...A slim volume, and every poem in it will give readers the Monty Python-esque sensation we should look for when reading one of Tate’s many poems...Many of these most-beloved poems feel new again...essential reading for anyone trying to achieve a daily balance in today’s world." - Heavy Feather Review

"...A valuable introduction to a poet whose work consistently interrogates this question—What are the chances?—forcing us to reconsider our definitions of both normal and unusual, reality and unexpected...Nevertheless, the great success of Tate’s writing is to broaden our idea of what is possible in poetry, of what truly belongs there." - Los Angeles Book Review