SOURCE: "Calvin Bedient on Charles Tomlinson," in The Iowa Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, Spring, 1970, pp. 83-100.

In the following essay, Bedient analyzes the innovative nature of Tomlinson's verse.

Charles Tomlinson is the most considerable English poet to have made his way since the second World War. There is more to see along that way, more to meditate, more solidity of achievement, more distinction of phrase, more success as, deftly turning, hand and mind execute the difficult knot that makes the poem complete, than in the work of any of Tomlinson's contemporaries. It is true that the way is strait; but Tomlinson would have it so. For his is a holding action: he is out to save the world for the curious and caring mind. And if he is narrow, he is only so narrow as a searching human eye and a mind that feeds and reflects on vision—an...