Rosemary Tonks died this May. For the last forty years, she had lived anonymously in Bournemouth, seldom leaving her house or entertaining visitors.
Yet, in the 1960s, her literary career had been remarkable. Six novels that sniped at contemporary society with a sardonic wit, experimental sound pieces with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, countless essays and reviews. Above all, she published two collections of poetry that introduced an idiosyncratic new voice into English poetry and helped define their epoch. Then, in the early 1970s, she retreated into deliberate obscurity. She never wrote another poem.
Arthur Rimbaud was one of Tonks’ poetic idols. Her work – concerned with Parisian flaneurie and adulterous liaisons – is one of the closest English analogues to the French enfant terrible. Like Tonks a century later, Rimbaud left the literary world and never returned, becoming a colonial adventurer and arms merchant.
The Disappearing Poet , curated by the Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation at Kings Place, promises to combine literary readings, biography and whodunit, all to ask the crucial question: why did these two poets at the height of their powers determine to vanish?
Yet, in the 1960s, her literary career had been remarkable. Six novels that sniped at contemporary society with a sardonic wit, experimental sound pieces with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, countless essays and reviews. Above all, she published two collections of poetry that introduced an idiosyncratic new voice into English poetry and helped define their epoch. Then, in the early 1970s, she retreated into deliberate obscurity. She never wrote another poem.
Arthur Rimbaud was one of Tonks’ poetic idols. Her work – concerned with Parisian flaneurie and adulterous liaisons – is one of the closest English analogues to the French enfant terrible. Like Tonks a century later, Rimbaud left the literary world and never returned, becoming a colonial adventurer and arms merchant.
The Disappearing Poet , curated by the Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation at Kings Place, promises to combine literary readings, biography and whodunit, all to ask the crucial question: why did these two poets at the height of their powers determine to vanish?
| What | The Disappearing Poet, Kings Place |
| Where | Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG | MAP |
| Nearest tube | King's Cross St. Pancras (underground) |
| When |
On 29 Oct 14, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM |
| Price | £9.50 |
| Website | Click here to book via Kings Place |
