Goodtime Jesus | A Poem by James Tate

April 12 - Here’s a poem for your Easter Sunday. I’m recording some of my favorite poems every day this April for National Poetry Month.

“Goodtime Jesus” by James Tate from “James Tate Selected Poems” and originally from “Riven Doggeries.”

So what about this poem? What is the poet getting at here? What I love about this poem is that it tells an important story from Christian mythology in a simple and human way. Tate even contemporizes the poem with the conversational, “How ‘bout some coffee? Don’t mind if I do.” I love that this poem looks at the resurrection story from the perspective of Jesus as a human on this earth, just like you me, and without all the fanfare–just a dude waking from the dead. What do you think?