Infinite Reversibility

Abstract

In 1996, Barker published his fifth volume of poetry, The Tortmann Diaries, in which a ‘solitary and diabolical’ protagonist pursues his senses of interrogation and wonder, reflecting the recognitions and active seizure of ‘alternatives’: even extending to the limitations of mortality, as identified in the major poem, ‘Infinite Resentment’, which imagines the mutiny of the dead, having glimpsed: ‘The infinite reversiblity of things/The seduction of opposites’. The work in this chapter correspondingly reflects Barker’s embodying of ‘Alternatives’, repudiations of the dominant terms of life – sometimes jointly undertaken by two parties, but frequently involving an ultimate tragic isolation; however, even this may have wider imaginative resonances for those (others) who may perceive and consider its terms.