"... birds were her soundscape ... and she would interpret soft calls or harsh caws or cries from crows and seagulls in particular as comforting messages or warnings from the Lord, and would base decisions on what to do, whom to trust, whether to go out, how to deal with a problem, on how these bird sounds made her feel... ." (Neil Astley, Introduction to Bedouin of the London Evening, Collected Poems of Rosemary Tonks).

A true occasion the publication of this Collected & its arrival on my desk this morning. I sat, several years ago, in the Poetry Library in London religiously copying out poems from The Iliad of Broken Sentences to come back to Brussels & cobble together a little volume of my own making.

Strange, though, for Bloodaxe to run with the cover photograph. Tonks seemed to be so obviously averse to any attention being drawn to herself. Would it not have been more appropriate - tactful, even - to work it another way?

& to think she was living in Bournemouth during the 80s ...