Skywriting : and other poems / Charles Tomlinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tomlinson, Charles, 1927-2015.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

93 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : Ivan R. Dee, 2003.

Summary:

Despite its decidedly English tone, Charles Tomlinson's poetry was first published in the United States and over the years has gained much from American poetry. This happy union appears once more in Skywriting, the third winner of the annual New Criterion Poetry Prize. The collection begins with a transatlantic flight to Mexico. Tomlinson is a traveler and explores the personal through the sense of place. He seeks to convey a human balance rather than the self-division and display that have characterized much contemporary work. (He was an ecological poet long before the word was widely used.) Mr. Tomlinson's extraordinary perception is everywhere evident. His ethical sense emerges not from politics or a social agenda but from his precise and fastidious evaluation of the perceived world. Hugh Kenner has remarked, "Charles Tomlinson is the first poet to have learned a way of being distinctly English by mastering an idiom markedly international. Consequently he can write in English, in England, as though it were a foreign tongue of amazing resources."

Contents:

Skywriting 9

Mexico: A Sequence 11

A Visit to Don Miguel 21

Waiting for the Bus at Tlacochahuaya 23

A Fragment from Mexico 26

From the Plane 29

Piazza 30

In Ferrara 31

The Etruscan Graveyard at Marzabotto 32

The Runners at San Benedetto 34

In June 36

July on the High Plain 38

The Journey: Pescocostanzo

Roma 39

Roma 40

Piazza Navona 43

Farewell to Europa 45

Japanese Notebook 49

To Shizue 52

For Noriko 53

Macao 54

On Lantau Island 56

Waiting for John 59

Bristol Night Walk 60

Death of a Poet 62

For T. H. 64

Cotswold Journey (2001) 65

Spem in Alium 67

Trout 69

Track 70

Slow Down 71

Newark Park (an upward glance) 72

Reflection 74

In the Hallway 75

The Even Numbers 77

If Bach had been a Beekeeper 78

Midwinter 79

February 81

The Transformation 82

Ode to Memory 83

The Leaper 85

Fire and Air 87

Primal Fire 89

Watching Water 90

Floodtime 91

The Martins 92

Tonight 93.

Notes:

"Winner of the New Criterion Poetry Prize."

ISBN:

1566635411

OCLC:

52631282