Smart and Final Iris (Poem Text)

Contents: Introduction Author Biography Poem Summary Themes Style Historical Context Critical Overview Criticism Sources Further Reading

Poem Text

Pentagon code
For end of world
Isrural paradise,
If plan fails
It’srural paradise                                    5
For losses under
100 million, a trip
on the wayward bus
For a future of mutants,
bridal parties collide                               10
World famine is
a plague of beatniks
First strike and
I sniff your nieces I fall to pieces                 15
Get hell out...
A madman comes,
one of those babies
the further you kick it
the bigger it gets.                                   20

Media Adaptations

• In 1992, New Letters on the Air released an un-titled audiocassette of Tate reading his poems.
• The Academy of American Poets has a website on Tate at http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=71 with biographical information and links to a few poems.