SOURCE: "Space, Time, and Ritual in Charles Tomlinson's Poetry," in Sagetrieb, Vol. 2, No. 2, Summer-Fall, 1983, pp. 85-98.

In the following essay, O'Gorman examines the function of ritual in Tomlinson's verse as well as his unique notion of space and time.

One might show, for example, that aesthetic perception too opens up a new spatiality, that the picture as a work of art is not the space which it inhabits as a physical thing and as a colored canvas … that the dance evolves in an aimless and unorientated space, that it is a suspension of our history….

Merleau-Ponty
Phenomenology of Perception

In their most traditional aspects, space and time are important frames of reference for Charles Tomlinson. The farm at Hinton Blewett, a bridge in Venice, the historical allusions of "Prometheus" and of "Assassin" all bring the particular, a sense of rootedness, of solidity to the poems in which they...