The Poetry of Charles Tomlinson: Border LinesJudith P. Saunders
Book Review
The Poetry of Charles Tomlinson: Border Lines by Judith P. Saunders is an exact and engrossing study that beautifully illuminates the poet's work. Saunders shows how Tomlinson has used borders as setting, topic, theme, metaphor and formal principle in his work. It is a well-organised book allowing the reader to grasp the depth and scope of Tomlinson's work through close analysis of more than 200 poems. By using spatial, temporal, perceptual and ideological borders as an organising principle, Tomlinson is able to investigate ecological, socio-political, ethical, philosophical and aesthetic concerns. He invites the reader through juxtaposition, counterpoint and clarity of language to explore a dynamic and multifaceted world. He marks shifts and displacements from an open and internationalist perspective. By defining and probing what lies on either side of a boundary the reader is invited to compare, contrast and question. Tomlinson is known above all as an English poet of perception. Saunders shows Tomlinson exploring the boundaries between illusion, reality and other border lines. He approaches alternative versions of reality in an inclusive and life affirming way. He alludes to deeper, possibly mysterious, lines of contact. What at first might be read as dry or odd becomes enlivening and diverting. Saunders captures the joy and playfulness in Tomlinson's work. His poems, dominated by seams, margins, furrows, edges, frontiers, rims, cracks, limits, brinks, bounds, rifts and barriers, probe ultimate boundaries and hover at the border between the rational and transcendental. It is a first rate critical study of a major poet, remarkably free of academic jargon. Tears in the Fence, Autumn 2003 To see a full description of this book, search our online database
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Photograph courtesy of Louise Dell-Bene Stahl © 2001