Academy of American Poets
View Cart | Log In 
Subscribe | More Info 
Find a Poet or Poem
Advanced Search >
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Tate
James Tate
The author of numerous collections of poetry, James Tate's collection Selected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award...
More >
FURTHER READING
Related Poems
We Build a Barn And Read Reader's Digest
by Tomaž Šalamun
Adopt a Poet | Add to Notebook | E-mail to Friend | Print
My Great Great Etc. Uncle Patrick Henry  
by James Tate

There's a fortune to be made in just about everything 
in this country, somebody's father had to invent 
everything--baby food, tractors, rat poisoning. 
My family's obviously done nothing since the beginning 
of time. They invented poverty and bad taste
and getting by and taking it from the boss. 
O my mother goes around chewing her nails and 
spitting them in a jar: You shouldn't be ashamed 
of yourself she says, think of your family. 
My family I say what have they ever done but 
paint by numbers the most absurd and disgusting scenes 
of plastic squalor and human degradation.
Well then think of your great great etc. Uncle 
Patrick Henry.



Share Digg StumbleUpon Facebook E-mail to Friend



From Absences, published by Atlantic Monthly Press, 1972. Copyright © 1972 by James Tate. Reprinted with permission.
Smaller TypeSmaller Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright © 1997 - 2012 by Academy of American Poets.