Add free shipping to your order with these great books
Sleeping on Islands : A Life in Poetry - Andrew Motion

Sleeping on Islands

A Life in Poetry

By: Andrew Motion

Paperback | 2 May 2024

Sorry, we are not able to source the book you are looking for right now.

We did a search for other books with a similar title, however there were no matches. You can try selecting from a similar category, click on the author's name, or use the search box above to find your book.

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

Down With the System : A Memoir (Of Sorts) - Serj Tankian
Fragile Creatures : A Memoir - Khin Myint

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Rebel Talk : The Art of Powerful Conversations - Jane Hutcheon

FREE SHIPPING

RRP $26.99

$21.75

19%
OFF
Strange Little Girl - Jessica Knight

RRP $36.99

$33.25

10%
OFF
The Life of Dai - Dai Henwood

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Black Duck : A Year at Yumburra - Bruce Pascoe

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia - Anita Heiss

RRP $32.99

$30.25

The Choice : A true story of hope - Edith Eger

RRP $24.99

$23.75

Everything I Know About Love : Now a Major BBC One Series - Dolly Alderton
Taste : My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci

RRP $22.99

$21.90

Who I Am : My Story - Melanie C

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
Big Mouth : A Memoir - Matt Preston

RRP $34.99

$31.75