ABSTRACT
Tomlinson commuted into the heart of the modern city to teach and then returned to his Cotswold cottage. One might expect this lifestyle to issue in far more frequent and acerbic outcries against his times, but there are surprisingly few. The poetic result is The Way In where Tomlinson publically describes the effect of his Midlands upbringing upon his verse, and thus allows us to see the foundation of his desire for an aesthetic of restoration. The precision of Tomlinson’s purely perceptual poems allows readers to see and hear together with the poet, which is often enough to earn the reader’s trust. These poems are different. The Way In is aware that trust must be earned when strong judgments are put forth by poems that are not simply descriptive. Tomlinson may have been “quietly” redefining Christian concepts all along, but this only becomes fully evident in Annunciations.
