Selected Poems of Charles Tomlinson

“His poems are among the best in the English language in this century.” —Hugh Kenner

“His measure gives a refreshing rustle or seething to the words which bespeak the entrance of a new life.” —William Carlos Williams

“Tomlinson insists, and he has a right to insist, that he is as authentic a voice of modern Britain as Philip Larkin is … Only in the great poets is content so intimately married to form.” —Donald Davies

Charles Tomlinson was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1927. He studied at Cambridge with Donald Davie and taught at the University of Bristol from 1957 until his retirement. He has published many collections of poetry as well as volumes of criticism and translation, and has edited the Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation (1980). His poetry has won international recognition and has received many prizes in Europe and the United States, including the 1993 Bennett Award from the Hudson Review; the New Criterion Poetry Prize, 2002; the Premio Internazionale di Poesia Ennio Flaiano, 2001; and the Premio Internazionale di Poesia Attilio Bertolucci, 2004. He is an honorary fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences and of the Modern Language Association. Charles Tomlinson was made a CBE for his contribution to literature in 2001.