James Tate

James Tate (1943 – 2015) was an American poet. His first collection was The Lost Pilot (Yale University Press, 1967) an elegy for his father who was shot down over Germany in 1944 when Tate was only four months old. His subsequent poetry rarely drew on his own experiences and he became known for poems characterised by humour and his love of the tall story. He won many awards including the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for his Selected Poems.