Talk:Rosemary Tonks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comment from Andrew Motion, published in The Times, 30 October 2004

Disappeared! What happened? Because I admire her poems, I've been trying to find out for years ... according to some people she became a Sufi. Others say she entered a closed order.

Others imagine her footloose and anonymous, travelling the wide world. In any event, no trace of her seems to survive - apart from the writing she left behind.

Poetlister 19:42, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Possible answer 2 Question 3 What the sources say 4 Possible compromise?

[edit] Possible answer

I did the last Dictionary of Literary Biography entry on Rosemary Tonks, and I can tell you that there is no public record of her after 1984, which is the year that she stopped contributing information to Writer's Directories. I looked everywhere for a trace of her, but I didn't find anything. I don't think that she "disappeared" since there is no evidence of that either. I'd say that she simply stopped writing and stopped being a writer, given the evidence available. One article speculates that her spiritual journey caused her silence and so I made use of that, but there is no direct evidence that this is how Tonks felt, other than a passage about her growing disillusionment in her last novel, The Halt During the Chase. Tonks' precise reasons for withdrawing from the public world remain known only to herself.

Jrak 21:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the best way to proceed would be to state the facts exactly as we have them -- she stopped writing (or at least publishing), stopped contributing to directories, and various people in the literary world have tried to track her down but failed -- without jumping to conclusions about her fate or speculating about her motives. What does everyone else think? Perodicticus 09:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Googled and UK search engine shows no mention of Tonks after Novenber 1973. Is she really missing? Only found info that her conversion to fundamentalist Christianity stopped her writing career early. She may have just went in private life and her fan base lost track of her.-Dakota

Read my quote from the Poet Laureate. He surely has better connections in the literary world than most people, yet he says that he has found no trace of her after several years of asking. - Poetlister 08:39, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

In the early 1970s, she became involved with a fundamentalist Christian sect and disappeared

This seems to suggest her disappearance (if that is indeed what it is) is connected to her membership of this sect. Is that the case? Where is the evidence for that connection? Has she ever been reported to police as a missing person? Have any official searches been made for her? JackofOz 08:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with DakotaKahn and JackofOz. There is no evidence that Tonks "disappeared" in the way that most people would interpret that term. She simply seems to have chosen to stay out of the limelight. I've edited the article to reflect this. Anyone who wants to restore the claim that she "disappeared" should provide actual documentation of this, like a missing-persons report. (The fact that Andrew Motion was unable to track her down proves nothing except that she didn't want him contacting her -- I wouldn't either!) Perodicticus 12:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I have quoted a source that passes WP:RS, namely an article in The Times, that said she disappeared. I have quoted another source (the external link) that says "her conversion to fundamentalist Christianity stopped her writing career short in the early 1970s". Wikipedia proceeds by quoting reliable sources. Anything else, like speculating about her attitude to the Poet Laureate, violates WP:NOR.--Poetlister 17:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Your "reliable sources" do not say what you think they say. One of them states that she stopped writing, which is not the same as "disappearing." The other says that a particular person was unable to track her down. As I said, this could mean simply that she wished to avoid publicity or did not want to be contacted by this particular individual. I can find no evidence that she has ever been reported missing to police or that her family have expressed concern about her whereabouts, which are the criteria one would normally use for declaring a person "disappeared." I don't have time to get into a revert war with you; however, since three people have now expressed doubt about the "disappeared" claim, I'm tagging this article as disputed until consensus can be reached. Perodicticus 10:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Can't we say something like "nothing is publicly known about her life after that time"? - Jmabel | Talk 05:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be a sensible option (though it did get reverted last time I tried it). Perodicticus 10:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree that it is a good idea, provided a reputable source says it. Otherwise, it would violate WP:NOR.--Poetlister 23:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What the sources say

I give the relevant texts below. Note that we have two sources that she disappeared - not just the Poet Laureate but also the popular poetry anthology "Being Alive". On the other hand, no evidence whatsoever has been produced that she has not disappeared. I quite agree that the article should say no more than these reliable sources do. I shal ensure that it does, and remove the "disputed" tag.--Poetlister 22:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The Times (London); Oct 30, 2004; Andrew Motion, A S Byatt, Shirley Mansion, David Baddiel, Saffron Burrows; p. 8

The Staying Alive anthology became one of Britain's most popular poetry books, selling more than 76,000 copies. Now a sequel, Being Alive, is about to hit the shelves. We asked some admirers to pick their favourites

ANDREW MOTION

The best thing we can say about the index to a poetry anthology is that it's reliable. But the index to Being Alive does more than that: it quietly advertises one of the mysteries of late 20th- century poetry -by putting, after the name of the contributor Rosemary Tonks, "b. London, 1932: disappeared 1970s".

Disappeared! What happened? Because I admire her poems, I've been tying to find out for years. She published some fiction and two collections of poems during the late-middle of the century, lived in Hampstead for a while, then...Well, according to some people she became a Sufi. Others say she entered a closed order.

Others imagine her footloose and anonymous, travelling the wide world. In any event, no trace of her seems to survive -apart from the writing she left behind.

It's a bewitching story, and seems all the more fascinating for the challenge it makes to our cult of celebrity. Not only that: the poems are seriously interesting, too -often Frenchified and/or fruity, hectic, and with a strangely irritable eroticism.

Story of a Hotel Room is a good example. If enough editors put her in their anthologies a publisher might re-issue her collected works. It would be worth it: she's a distinctive and authentic voice. They might even track her down -if she's still alive, and willing to be found again.

Andrew Motion is the Poet Laureate. His novel The Invention of Dr Cake is published by Faber

---
Rosemary Tonks was a poet of considerable innovation and originality, until her conversion to fundamentalist Christianity stopped her writing career short in the early 1970s.

I'm sorry, but dispute tags should not be removed until consensus has been reached. Please remember that this article is not your private property.

At any rate, now that I have read the pieces you quote above, I am more convinced than ever that they do NOT prove what you claim they prove (views from other editors on this point would be welcome). In fact, Motion's article actually seems to support what I have been saying -- that Tonks has simply chosen to live in obscurity. He certainly doesn't say anything to make me think she fits the criteria for Category:Disappeared people --"Category for people who went missing and whose subsequent fate is a mystery."

Using the term "disappeared" to describe Tonks' post-literary life seems highly misleading to me (do we say T.E. Lawrence "disappeared" when he changed his name and joined the RAF?), and there appear to be at least four other editors who agree with me. As for your statement that "no evidence whatsoever has been produced that she has not disappeared," that is because one cannot prove a negative. The onus is on you to prove that she has disappeared; otherwise, we are entitled to assume she hasn't. Perodicticus 11:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Surely we have to take what Motion says, not what we think he ought to have said. Motion says that she disappeared and this is "one of the mysteries of late 20th-century poetry". It is an utterly different case from T. E. Lawrence; plenty of people knew were he was and what he was doing. I am not asking anyone to prove a negative. It would be quite possible to prove that she has not disappeared - find some evidence of her whereabouts or activities after 1984. I have proved that she has disappeared; I have produced two reliable sources that say so. The onus is thus on others to prove that she hasn't, by showing where she has been since 1984.--Poetlister 23:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible compromise?

Poetlister, as you seem very attached to the word "disappeared," I would like to suggest that the article be changed to read "disappeared from the public eye" or "from the literary scene." This would keep the notion of "disappearance" without misleading the reader as to the nature of the disappearance. Would this be acceptable to you? Perodicticus 11:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree that it is a good idea, provided a reputable source says it. Otherwise, it would violate WP:NOR. "Disappeared" isn't my word - it's what the sources say. --Poetlister 23:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I presume we don't have any sources talking of unsolved police cases, or stating that she is officially a "missing person"? In this case, it is probably reasonably to interpret "disappeared" as "disappeared from the public eye" and it would also be reasonable to clarify the article text to reflect this. To my mind this would not constitute original research. To further clarify we could include in a footnote the exact text which simply uses the word "disappeared". Does this sound ok?? Stumps 10:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've had a closer look at the article and it seems we are close to this, with the detailed footnotes already there. My interpretation of the sources is that she became "untraceable". I think the word "disappeared" has too many interpretations. Am I right in thinking there is only one primary source for this information, i.e. the contributor's note in the anthology?? Has anybody tried to contact the editor of the anthology and ask what the original source for this information is?? Stumps 10:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

No, there are two independent sources - the anthology and Andrew Motion's own enquiries. How about 'she disappeared so completely from the public view that even the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, has been unable to find any information about her whereabouts or activities and has described her disappearance as a mystery.' - Poetlister 22:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There's no earthly need to insist on police records to prove disappearance. Is anyone suggesting that Ambrose Bierce didn't disappear? I'd say Poetlister is bending over backwards to make everyone happy. Let's accept what she says and be done with it.--Brownlee 21:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)