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In 1997 a routine cataract operation robbed Tomlinson of sight in his left eye, a loss that was a torment to one whose painterly vision was at the heart of his being as well as his writing. Tomlinson suffered depression. Brenda cheered him along by reading aloud, including the entirety of Jane Austen and War and Peace. In his seventy-second year, Tomlinson wrote, ‘I have never felt so full of possibility. The promise of the future never felt so fecund…I think I’ve come through’. A late phase of his writing produced elegant, keenly-observed poetry about the landscapes and inscapes of Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain in The Vineyard above the Sea (1999), Skywriting (2003), and Cracks in the Universe (2006). A  New Collected Poems, scrupulously assembled and checked by Brenda, was published in 2009. In addition to his poetry, Tomlinson was the editor of  The Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation (1980), and of critical essays on Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams, and from Spanish and Italian the work of many poets, including Attilio Bertolucci and Octavio Paz. His prose includes Some Americans (1981), Poetry and Metamorphosis (1983), American Essays: Making it New (2001) and Metamorphoses: Poetry and Translation (2003). Tomlinson’s poems won international recognition and received many prizes in Europe and the United States, including the Bennett award from the Hudson Review in 1993; the Flaiano poetry prize in 2001; the New Criterion poetry prize in 2002; and the premio internazionale di poesia Attilio Bertolucci in 2004. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1974, and an honorary fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge (1974), Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London (1991), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998), and the Modern Language Association (2003). He was made a CBE in 2001 and received five honorary doctorates, including one from Bristol in 2004, and a Cholmondeley award from the Society of Authors in 1979. His academic honours included visiting professorships or fellowships at the University of New Mexico (1962-3), Colgate University, New York (1967-8 and 1989), Princeton University (1981), Union College, New York (1987), McMaster University, Ontario (1987), and the University of Keele (1989). Charles Tomlinson’s poetry occupies a prominent place in any discussion of the history of twentieth-century poetry. His reputation as a true (perhaps the only true) transatlantic poet won him acclaim from readers and critics alike, perhaps even more so in 179 afterword
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America and continental Europe than the UK itself. After a long period of ill-health and tormenting total blindness, he died peacefully at Brook Cottage on 22 August 2015 with his family around him. He is survived by his wife Brenda and their two daughters, Justine and Juliet. The service before Charles’s funeral concluded with a recording of Charles reading ‘The Door’, the poem that serves as epilogue to this Selected Poems. * For my part, Charles was the poetic father who invited me into his English Literature tutorials at Bristol University while I was reading for a Zoology degree. He read my poems, making precise and helpful comments. He gave me challenging reading lists to broaden my repertoire of thought, feeling, and form. His mentorship became friendship. During the opera season, Brenda, Charles and I sometimes found ourselves occupying the high seats – ‘The Gods’ - at The Hippodrome, and would discuss music at length. Charles’s love and extraordinary knowledge of music was astonishing. As Brenda has commented, ‘You only had to play two notes of a piece and he would recognise it. This was very important for his quite subtle sense of rhythm in his poetry’. For many readers, this will be the first time they have read Charles Tomlinson’s poetry. After Charles’s funeral I was convinced that a strong selection of his poems could appeal to a new generation of readers. I sought the advice of Brenda and began the adventure of re-reading and selecting Charles’s work. I also listened to the recordings of his poetry made by Richard Swigg at Keele University. Hearing Charles’s poems as spoken word is to tune into their meticulous music, the ‘quite subtle sense of rhythm’ as Brenda puts it. Every time I listened to his poems it felt like the first time I had heard them. Every time I read his poems I wanted to share them with as many people as possible. I recommend that, as you read these poems on the page, you also speak them aloud: ‘Hear with the eyes as you catch the current of their sounds’. Personal quotations are from conversations and correspondence with Brenda Tomlinson 180 afterword

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In 1997 a routine cataract operation robbed Tomlinson of sight in his left eye, a loss that was a torment to one whose painterly vision was at the heart of his being as well as his writing. Tomlinson suffered depression. Brenda cheered him along by reading aloud, including the entirety of Jane Austen and War and Peace. In his seventy-second year, Tomlinson wrote, ‘I have never felt so full of possibility. The promise of the future never felt so fecund…I think I’ve come through’. A late phase of his writing produced elegant, keenly-observed poetry about the landscapes and inscapes of Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain in The Vineyard above the Sea (1999), Skywriting (2003), and Cracks in the Universe (2006). A  New Collected Poems, scrupulously assembled and checked by Brenda, was published in 2009.

In addition to his poetry, Tomlinson was the editor of  The Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation (1980), and of critical essays on Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams, and from Spanish and Italian the work of many poets, including Attilio Bertolucci and Octavio Paz. His prose includes Some Americans (1981), Poetry and Metamorphosis (1983), American Essays: Making it New (2001) and Metamorphoses: Poetry and Translation (2003).

Tomlinson’s poems won international recognition and received many prizes in Europe and the United States, including the Bennett award from the Hudson Review in 1993; the Flaiano poetry prize in 2001; the New Criterion poetry prize in 2002; and the premio internazionale di poesia Attilio Bertolucci in 2004. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1974, and an honorary fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge (1974), Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London (1991), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998), and the Modern Language Association (2003). He was made a CBE in 2001 and received five honorary doctorates, including one from Bristol in 2004, and a Cholmondeley award from the Society of Authors in 1979. His academic honours included visiting professorships or fellowships at the University of New Mexico (1962-3), Colgate University, New York (1967-8 and 1989), Princeton University (1981), Union College, New York (1987), McMaster University, Ontario (1987), and the University of Keele (1989).

Charles Tomlinson’s poetry occupies a prominent place in any discussion of the history of twentieth-century poetry. His reputation as a true (perhaps the only true) transatlantic poet won him acclaim from readers and critics alike, perhaps even more so in

179 afterword

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