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November 7th, 2009 - we have 234 poets, 8,023 poems and 17,880 comments.
James Tate - The List of Famous Hats

Napoleon's hat is an obvious choice I guess to list as a famous
hat, but that's not the hat I have in mind. That was his hat for
show. I am thinking of his private bathing cap, which in all hon-
esty wasn't much different than the one any jerk might buy at a
corner drugstore now, except for two minor eccentricities. The
first one isn't even funny: Simply it was a white rubber bathing
cap, but too small. Napoleon led such a hectic life ever since his
childhood, even farther back than that, that he never had a
chance to buy a new bathing cap and still as a grown-up--well,
he didn't really grow that much, but his head did: He was a pin-
head at birth, and he used, until his death really, the same little
tiny bathing cap that he was born in, and this meant that later it
was very painful to him and gave him many headaches, as if he
needed more. So, he had to vaseline his skull like crazy to even
get the thing on. The second eccentricity was that it was a tricorn
bathing cap. Scholars like to make a lot out of this, and it would
be easy to do. My theory is simple-minded to be sure: that be-
neath his public head there was another head and it was a pyra-
mid or something.

Added: on July 4th, 2005 at 5:58 PM | Viewed: 9925 times | Comments and analysis of The List of Famous Hats by James Tate Comments (5)


The List of Famous Hats - Comments and Information

Poet: James Tate (James Tate Art)
Poem: The List of Famous Hats
Volume: Reckoner
Year: Published/Written in 1986

Comment 5 of 5, added on November 9th, 2007 at 12:27 PM.

This has got ot be one of the most hilarious things I've ever read.

ea
Comment 4 of 5, added on November 5th, 2007 at 4:38 AM.

LOL. Hats off to Tate!

ea
Comment 3 of 5, added on July 4th, 2005 at 5:58 PM.

this poem is so good, it's hard to even describe it....I agree: more frivolity on Earth.....I mean, whatever happened to frivolity? wild orgies? the good life? ......

cary from Belize

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