Although Rosemary Tonks poet and novelist, actually died on April 14, I didn't learn she had left us until today while reading her obit in the
Guardian.
She was one of the most powerful and committed poets of her generation. Tragic, to learn that her last years were a dungeon of loss, isolation and physical pain.
May a volume of her collected poems appear soon -- or at least a (r)e-print of her collection,
Iliad of Broken Sentences.
Rosemary Tonks' Obituary in the Guardian
"Criminal, you took a great piece of my life,
And you took it under false pretences:
That piece of time --
In the clear muscles of my brain
I have the lens and jug of it!
Books, thoughts, meals, days, and houses,
Half of Europe, spent like a coarse banknote,
You took it -- leaving mud and cabbage stumps."
-- R.T.