Coming in to Land

Selected Poems 1975-2015

Andrew Motion

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780062644084
• eBook ISBN: 9780062644091
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

From England’s former Poet Laureate, a collection of selected poetry spanning his celebrated career, presented for the first time by an American publisher

 

Andrew Motion has said, “I want my writing to be as clear as water. I want readers to see all the way through its surfaces into the swamp." Though the territory of his exploration may be murky and mired—the front lines of war, political entanglements, romantic longing, and human suffering—Motion’s conversational tone and lyrical style make for clear, bold poems that speak to contradictions at the heart of the human condition.

Whether underground in an urban metro, in the poet’s home, on the steps leading up to Anne Frank’s annex, or wading in the Norfolk broads, Motion’s richly imagined landscapes contain unspoken mysteries underneath the poet’s candor. In the tradition of English pastoral poetry that includes Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, and William Wordsworth, these poems skate over sweeping empires and plumb emotional depths, settling in a meditative, understated register. As an introduction to one of England’s most lauded living poets, English Elegies offers a moving depiction of this writer’s career as a chronicler of modernity’s pitfalls and triumphs.

II.

LAURELS AND DONKEYS

(2009–2015)

A MOMENT OF REFLECTION

28 June 1914

Although an assassin has tried

and failed to blow him to pieces earlier this morning,

Archduke Ferdinand has let it be known

he will very soon complete his journey

as planned along the quay in Sarajevo.

For a moment, however,

he has paused to recover his composure

at the window of a private room in the Town Hall,

after finding the blood of his aide-de-camp

spattered over the manuscript of the speech

he was previously unable to complete.

And indeed,

the prospect of an Austrian brewery in the distance

is reassuring,

likewise the handsome bulk of the barracks

filled with several thousand soldiers of the fatherland.

This is how those who survive today will remember him:

a man thinking his thoughts

until his wife has finished her duties—

the Countess Chotek, with her pinched yet puddingy features,

to whom he will whisper shortly,

‘Sophie, live for our children’,

although she will not hear.

As for his own memories:

the Head of the local Tourist Bureau has now arrived

and taken it upon himself to suggest

the Archduke might be happy to recall the fact

that only last week he bagged his three thousandth stag.

Was this, the Head dares to enquire,

with the double-barrelled Mannlicher

made for him especially—

the same weapon he used to dispatch

two thousand one hundred and fifty game birds

in a single day,

and sixty boars in a hunt led by the Kaiser?

These are remarkable achievements

the Head continues,

on the same level as the improvement

the Archduke has suggested in the hunting of hare,

by which the beaters,

forming themselves into a wedge-shape,

squeeze those notoriously elusive creatures

towards a particular spot

where he can exceed the tally of every other gun.

In the silence that follows

it is not obvious whether the Archduke

has heard the question.

He has heard it.

He is more interested, however,

in what these questions bring to mind:

an almost infinite number of woodcock,

pigeon, quail, pheasant and partridge,

wild boars bristling flank to flank,

mallard and teal and geese

dangling from the antlers of stags,

layer after layer of rabbits

and other creatures that are mere vermin—

a haul that he predicts will increase

once the business of today has been completed.

SETTING THE SCENE

Before I come to the trenches, let me tell you the village

is a ruin and the church spire a stump; every single house

has been devastated by shell-bursts and machine-gun fire.

I saw a hare advance down the main street a moment ago,

then pause with the sun shining bright red through his ears.

LAURELS AND DONKEYS

Afterwards, when everyone who suddenly burst out singing

has stopped again, Siegfried Sassoon settles back into the haze

of the old century. It is 1897, he is 11, and this is Edingthorpe

in north Norfolk. His mother, wearing her light purple cloak,

has packed herself with the wicker picnic basket, bathing gear,

and three sons into the long shandrydan, drawn by a donkey,

which has been led round from the Rectory by the gardener.

There is a plan to take a dip in ...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• I. Poems (1975–2008)
• II. Laurels and Donkeys (2009–2015)
• III. Poems (2009–2015)
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Also by Andrew Motion
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher