Charles Tomlinson

The Vineyard above the Sea

The title poem of this volume describes the vineyards of an area of Italy which has been the subject of many of Tomlinsons poems since his earliest work. In the Cinque Terre, vines are cultivated along the cliffs, within precarious sight of the sea beneath. These are the poems of a traveller, exploring the personal through the sense of place - Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and the West of England.

An Anthology of Verse Written in and on Oklahoma

Throughout time, a single man has been born, a single man has died. To think otherwise is to be led into statistics, is to attempt the impossible. Something no less impossible than trying to add the smell of rain to the dream you dreamed the night before last. That man is Ulysses, Abel, Cain, the first man to make the stars into constellations, the builder of the first pyramid, the man who set down the hexagrams of the Book of Changes, the smith who carved runes on Hengests sword, the bowman Einar Tamberskelver, Luis de Leon, the bookseller who fathered Samuel Johnson, Voltaires gardener, Darwin on the deck of the Beagle, a Jew in the death chamber with time, you and I. A single man has died at Troy, at Metaurus, at Hastings, at Austerlitz, at Trafalgar, at Gettysburg. A single man has died in a hospital ward, on shipboard in bitter loneliness, in loves and habits bedroom. A single man has seen the spreading dawn. A single man has felt on his tongue the coolness of water, the taste of fruits and flesh.