"Tillinghast's poems range confidently among different cultures. He has a sense of history as a living force. The experiments in metre, rhyme and free verse in The Stonecutter's Hand are important. He is a wonderfully gifted poet, one of the few."
Louis Simpson
"Of all the many complex, sometimes self-...
"Tillinghast's poems range confidently among different cultures. He has a sense of history as a living force. The experiments in metre, rhyme and free verse in The Stonecutter's Hand are important. He is a wonderfully gifted poet, one of the few."
Louis Simpson
"Of all the many complex, sometimes self-cancelling, tasks a poet must address, it may be that the most demanding and severe is getting things right. Richard Tillinghast performs that office with an honesty so strict that over and over his poems prove themselves faithful in ways that bring a quiet, undisputed delight."
Anthony Hecht
Today in the Café Trieste brings together new and old work by Richard Tillinghast, author of five books of poetry published in the United States, including the critically acclaimed The Stonecutter's Hand. James Dickey called Tillinghast 'the best poet of the younger generation, and deserving more recognition than most of the poets of the older generation...' His work stands out among contemporary poetry for its focus on history, and for the ease with which it moves back and forth between widely differing poetic idioms. In the early 90s Tillinghast lived for a year with his family in Kinvara, County Galway, and he continues to visit Ireland often. He frequently writes on books and travels for the New York Times.
Richard Tillinghast is the author of five books of poetry published in the United States, including the critically acclaimed The Stonecutter's Hand, as well as Today in the Cafe Trieste, published by Salmon which features a selection of Tillinghast's work, both published and previously unpublished. James Dickey called Tillinghast 'the best poet of the younger generation, and deserving more recognition than most of the poets of the older generation...' His work stands out among contemporary poetry for its focus on history, and for the ease with which it moves back and forth between widely differing poetic idioms. In the early 90s Tillinghast lived for a year with his family in Kinvara, County Galway, and he continues to visit Ireland often. He frequently writes on books and travels for the New York Times.
The Emigrant
Two places only
there were:
here and America.
The four corners of the farm,
and gone-beyond-the-sea.
With a twopenny nail
he etched into the iron
shank of his spade
the word 'Destiny',
drove it with his boot smartly into the turf
and left it standing.
Abroad commenced
at the town line.
The New World blinded him
on the Navan road
and again the first time he tried to speak English
and again the first time he saw an orange.
Anaesthetized by reels and barrels of porter
and eight renditions of 'The Parting Glass',
he fell asleep to the groan of oars
and awoke to a diesel thrust
and sleet over mountainous seas.
