Three books of criticism devoted to Tomlinson's poetry, two published in the United States and one in Canada, have preceded this one. I have been reading Tomlinson for over forty years, and this study was written, in the long-standing conviction that he is a major poet, to support that conviction by a detailed examination of his work. Its aim is to show how these poems demand to be read and what they yield to close scrutiny. A critical ‘reading’ conveys, and invites other readers to share and ponder, the critic's experience of a poem, an oeuvre. Criticism can seem glib if, naming themes, labelling techniques, tracing influences and sources, identifying literary and historical contexts, it is only about the poetry; if it does not also try with its own language to enter into that experience. This study is addressed to two audiences: readers already interested in its subject and anyone who wishes to enquire into a reputation not yet tested.

Charles Tomlinson was born in 1927 at Stoke-on-Trent, where with other working-class children he received an excellent grammar school education. He studied English at Cambridge (1945–48),where he met the poet and critic Donald Davie. He taught school for three years in London, and then spent a year in Italy (1951–52). He completed an MA thesis in the University of London in 1955, and in 1956 joined the Department of English at the University of Bristol as Lecturer (later Reader and finally Professor, holding a personal Chair). He retired in 1992. He brought out a pamphlet of verse, Relations and Contraries, in 1951,which he regards as prentice work and, except for one poem, has not been reprinted. In1955 he published his first original poems, The Necklace, and received the first of many prizes and awards for his poetry. On the strength of this and its successor, Seeing is Believing, published first in the United States in 1958 and then, with additional poems, in England two years later, he was acclaimed by Hugh Kenner as ‘the most original poet to come along in a generation’. Since then he has averaged one collection every three years. His first Selected Poems appeared in 1978 and his first Collected Poems in 1985.