ABSTRACT
Tomlinson makes his mark as an empiricist poet focused on the phenomena of this world, quietly convinced of their inherent value. In this way he may be viewed as the opposite of Larkin. Instead of Larkin’s signature frustration and morbidity, he expresses admiration, unembarrassed curiosity, confidence in the interest of the represented scene. Tomlinson begins to construct an elaborate set of beliefs about tradition, continuity, and the spirit of place. Contemporary England, he believes, is marked by a loss of cultural memory. Tomlinson works in a modern city, but deliberately seeks out a different “rhythm” for his life even while he is trying to break the traditional pentameter in his verse. A poem The Mausoleum shows how Tomlinson’s phenomenological orientation can, at its most nuanced and supple, allow for a good deal of “humanness” to complicate its view of the nonhuman separateness of the external world.
