The Lost Pilot Comments

The poet idealizes his lost father who crashed during WWII in the company of his buddies who are imagined to suffer decomposition. For the poet, Dad is forever orbiting and never landing. He is immortal in his mind. The urgent, certain voice of the narrator convinces the reader that his father is immortal regardless of what really happened. Heroes who die young give up their lives with their families in exchange for immortality. That is the traditional hero myth. Yeats wrote a poem about an Irish airman who died in WWI from a less personal POV. This one won the Yale prize and set Tate up for his long career in poetry.

I love this poem dearly. This is probably my favorite contemporary poem of all time. This poem should be on every poetry list in every school. Tate's 'The Lost Pilot' and Simic's 'Butcher Shop' are two poems that inspired me to read more poetry and to write more poetry. Another great Tate poem is 'Who Can Tell if He Is Awake' (I think that's the title...I might be off one or two words...but it has all kinds of magical stuff going on in that poem. That's what I love about Tate. There is a definitely a suspension of disbelief when you read him. Even when something seems silly there is a serious undertone to it that just breaks my heart. Everyone should read Tate, Simic, and Strand...their poetry...all Pulitzer prize winners and all poets that will be remembered long after they are gone.