Skywriting: And Other Poems

by Charles Tomlinson

Overview

The winner in the third annual contest for the New Criterion Poetry Prize, Skywriting and Other Poems is a triumphant book by an acknowledged master of the craft. Charles Tomlinson's unfailing sensitivity and decorum toward the visual world is brilliantly realized in this new book. Willard Spiegelman calls him "a patient looker at landscape." Whether his subject is a temple in Japan, the landscapes of his native England, or the "lithe iambics" of two runners on a beach in Italy, Mr. Tomlinson's extraordinary perception is everywhere evident. It is a perception that lights up the world, "as lightning explores the sleeping face of nature." His ethical sense emerges not from politics or a social agenda but from his precise and fastidious evaluation of the perceived world. Donald Hall calls him "a master of the craft....His poems have the finality of form which you find only among the first-rate."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566635417
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	09/24/2003
Series:	New Criterion Series
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.96(w) x 8.76(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Charles Tomlinson was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England, read English at Queen's College, Cambridge, and is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, literary essays, and admired translations, and editor of the important and acclaimed Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation. Mr. Tomlinson has received the Bennett Award from the Hudson Review for his achievement in poetry. He has also had shows in the United Kingdom of his paintings and drawings. He lives in England.

Table of Contents

I
	Skywriting	9
	Mexico: A Sequence	11
	A Visit to Don Miguel	21
	Waiting for the Bus at Tlacochahuaya	23
	A Fragment from Mexico	26
II
	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
III
	Japanese Notebook	49
	To Shizue	52
	For Noriko	53
	Macao	54
	On Lantau Island	56
IV
	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

What People are Saying About This

Willard Spiegelman

A patient looker at landscape.

Donald Hall

A master of the craft, his poems have the finality of form which you find only among the first-rate.

Octavio Paz

He is fascinated-with his eyes open: a lucid fascination-at the universal busyness, the continuous generation and degeneration of things.

William Carlos Williams

Tomlinson's poetry gives a refreshing rustle or seething to the words which bespeak the entrance of a new life.

Hugh Kenner

His poems are among the best in the English language this century.

Editorial Reviews

Tomlinson's poetry gives a refreshing rustle or seething to the words which bespeak the entrance of a new life.

William Carlos Williams

He is fascinated—with his eyes open: a lucid fascination—at the universal busyness, the continuous generation and degeneration of things.

Octavio Paz

Tomlinson, 76, is a painter as well as a poet, and his artist's eye serves him well in his poetry.... This book in fact records a well-planned poetic itinerary.

The Philadelphia Inquirer - Frank Wilson

His poems are among the best in the English language this century.

Hugh Kenner

A patient looker at landscape.

Willard Spiegelman

Tomlinson's perfected style has been little imitated, but I predict it will come to be seen as one of the major achievements of late twentieth-century English verse.

Times Literary Supplement

A master of the craft, his poems have the finality of form which you find only among the first-rate.

Donald Hall

Mr. Tomlinson is an eloquent poet of place...whose work combines visual exactitude with an uncommon gracefulness of expression.

The Economist

Reading Charles Tomlinson makes one acutely aware that there's a whole world outside—and inside too—just waiting to be noticed, and that the more we notice, the more we are enriched.

Chicago Tribune

A standout.

New York Sun

Reading Charles Tomlinson makes one acutely aware that there's a whole world outside—and inside too—just waiting to be noticed, and that the more we notice, the more we are enriched.

Chicago Tribune

Tomlinson's perfected style has been little imitated, but I predict it will come to be seen as one of the major achievements of late twentieth-century English verse.

Times Literary Supplement (UK)

Tomlinson, 76, is a painter as well as a poet, and his artist's eye serves him well in his poetry.... This book in fact records a well-planned poetic itinerary.
— Frank Wilson

Philadelphia Inquirer

Tomlinson['s]...eye serves him well in his poetry .... This book in fact records a well-planned poetic itinerary.
—Philadelphia Inquirer

Frank Wilson