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Back to ProgrammeFormer Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, has always contended 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”.
Sleeping on Islands is Andrew Motion’s clear-sighted and open-hearted account of a remarkable poetic life. 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.
Motion reveals 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 Andrew 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.
