Anya Creightney interviews Tammy Pate in Cut Off, LA
Anya: So tell me your name, where you live, and a little about yourself. 
Tammy: My name is Tammy Pate, and I’m from Cut Off, right here, born and raised. Right out of high school I went to live in Houston to work as a nanny. I did that for two years and moved back down here and never left. I was coming for a visit and ended up saying “There’s no place like home.” I have been employed with the Lafourche Parish Library for 24 years. I’m married, I have four kids and four grandbabies, and I love my job, love my community. 
Anya: That’s beautiful, thank you. So are you a poetry reader? 
Tammy: Yes. Matter of fact, when I was in high school, we had to do a social studies project and my project was on poetry. Go figure. People didn’t do that. I did like to write a little bit. My daughter does, too, and my daughter she was here today. She’s 25, and poetry was her way of therapy. She wrote and when she wrote, it was done. She released it. So I did have more of an appreciation going through that with her. It helped and like I said once it was written, it was done. She just had to write down her thoughts and it was good. So she came today and like I said she really enjoyed it. She’s a mama too, so she’s really busy, and she said “I have ‘me’ time” and really liked it. 
Anya. I’m happy to hear that. And have you attended poetry events before? 
Tammy: Nope, this was the first. Very first one.
Anya: Wow, that’s exciting! And what did you think about today’s poetry reading? 
Tammy: That it’s the first I’ve ever been to one, and I didn’t know what to expect. Like Tracy had first said, people think about poetry—oh, they cringe. “I’ve got it wrong, it’s got this and that”—poetry’s not like that. It’s however you take—first of all, it’s a person’s thoughts. This is what they thought, but how you get it might mean something totally different. So it’s not black and white. It’s just whatever somebody’s feeling at that moment, and you might get a different feeling or a wholly different perspective. So I really liked when she said it’s not black and white, you don’t have to cringe. It’s expression, it’s your feelings, it’s your thoughts. So that was pretty cool. 
Anya: And did any of the poems resonate with you today? 
Tammy: Yes. The one about the family, the grandparents. Especially down here I can remember going to a friend’s house—once again, that was my second mom, and they’re up at the crack of dawn, no alarm, but waking all of us up with Cajun music. That was our alarm clock. And the birthday part too, like she said “no birthdays,” parents don’t celebrate their birthdays—they celebrate their kids’ birthdays. Take a step back—it’s not about me anymore, I have kids, it’s about my kids. Also down here too, about the tradition, about roots, just everybody’s related to everybody. We did our geneology, we can go back to 1600, we know our roots, and that’s just down here—there’s no place like here. 
Anya: And how did the poems make you feel? 
Tammy: It made me feel good to reminisce. It brought back old feelings of, you know—my mother in law passed away and it brought back stuff with her mom. So it was good to remind me, you know, it just made my heart feel good. 
Anya: Good. Do you think you’ll read more poetry after this reading?
Tammy: Oh yeah. As a matter of fact, while she was reading, I was flipping through—
Anya: That’s exactly what we like to hear. 
Tammy: And then my daughter, she was like “Mom, read this one, read this one—it’s good, too.”
Anya: Oh good, I’m so glad. 
Tammy: So that was cool. I was the one who did this display, because we have a display of her [Tracy’s] stuff, and I haven’t even picked up a book, but I will now. 
Anya: That’s music to our hearts. 
Tammy: You know, so it was good. I’ll be honest, when we first heard you all were coming, I was like “Man, not in Louisiana, nobody’s coming to this.” We’re not a college town. But this was awesome! 
Anya: It was a packed house!
Tammy: It was! And people interacted. It wasn’t like they were just sitting there. So I’m very excited, I really am, because like I said, I’m the manager here. It was a failure to look bad on me. But it wasn’t, and people enjoyed it, so I’m so stoked. It was really good. 
Anya: Well thank you so much for joining us today, and for your enthusiasm, and I’m so happy that you had a positive experience with poetry today, and that you’ll take it with you.
Tammy: Oh yeah, yeah. You brightened my day, you really did.