Charles Tomlinson's poetry tempts one to adjectives like "restrained," "modest," "exquisite," "moral," "patient," and "attentive." He is the most fastidious and observant of poets, scrupulously probing into the world around him, continually noticing the fluctuations in that world's appearance. He has a physical and metaphysical concern with the shimmer and glamour of surfaces and for him, as for Ruskin and Stevens, "the greatest poverty is not to live in a physical world."… [He] brings to his poems a painter's sensitivity to the importance of exteriors. He shares with some of the painters he most admires … an attentiveness to physical detail, an objective concern with the shadings and shadows of landscape, a wonder before the natural object, a fidelity to the nuances of light and darkness. A moral sense informs Tomlinson's respect for the Other—both human and nonhuman—and much of his work investigates the complex relationship between...