Sleeping on Islands : A Life in Poetry - Andrew Motion

Sleeping on Islands

A Life in Poetry

By: Andrew Motion

Hardcover | 18 May 2023

At a Glance

Hardcover


Limited Stock Available

RRP $48.90

$44.25

10%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $11.06 with

 or 
In Stock and Aims to ship in 1-2 business days

When will this arrive by?

A tender, revelatory memoir featuring many of the major figures in British poetry, from a former Poet Laureate.

Andrew Motion has been close to the centres of British poetry for over fifty years. Sleeping on Islands is his clear-sighted and open-hearted account of this remarkable career. It takes us from scenes of a teenage home-life coloured by tragedy and silence - where writing was as much a refuge as an assertion - to the excruciations of early public appearances, to the decade he spent as Poet Laureate, promoting and ensuring the central place of poetry in a nation's character. Along the way, we hear about the risks and sacrifices involved, as well as the difficulties of sustaining a commitment to writing within a helix of other obligations. 

We see in close-up the significance of Motion's formative relationship with W. H. Auden and his subsequent friendship with Philip Larkin. And during his time as Laureate, we witness memorable encounters with Royalty and Prime Ministers, and discover the costs and complications that accompany such a high-profile role. By turns moving and humorous, this is the intimate story of a rare poetic life. And it proves Motion's contention that the poems we most enjoy 'are not weird visitations, or ornaments stuck on the surface of life, but part of life's daily bread'.

More in Memoirs

Source Code : My Beginnings - Bill Gates

RRP $55.00

$35.00

36%
OFF
Memorial Days - Geraldine Brooks

Hardcover

RRP $32.99

$21.95

33%
OFF
HOPE : The Autobiography - Pope Francis

RRP $36.99

$26.95

27%
OFF
Iron Hope : Lessons Learned from Conquering the Impossible - James Lawrence
Wifedom : Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life : Our July Book of the Month - Anna Funder
Uses for Obsession : A Chef's Memoir - Ben Shewry

RRP $34.99

$33.25

Educated : The international bestselling memoir - Tara Westover
The Harder I Fight The More I Love You : A Memoir - Neko Case
Tina : The Dog Who Changed the World - Niall Harbison

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Mrs D is Not on a Diet - Lotta Dann

RRP $34.99

$33.25

Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia - Anita Heiss

RRP $32.99

$30.25