Most Popular Books by Andrew Motion

The stunning new sequence of poems from former poet laureate Andrew Motion.

Andrew Motion''s new book opens with a sequence of war poems (first published as the pamphlet Laurels and Donkeys, on Armstice Day 2010), drawing on soldiers'' experiences of war from 1914 until today - beginning with a story about Siegfried Sassoon and moving via World War Two and Korea to the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the poems are in the voices of combatants, others are based on memories of the poet''s father, who landed at D-day and fought in France and Germany. The poems combine understatement with a clear-eyed and unswerving candour. The Customs House has other rooms: a group of topographies, mapping moments in a marriage against the contingencies of place and family history; and several ''found poems'', in which the poet collaborates with his source, mixing what is there already with what is about to be there: whether a remarkable sonnet sequence on the last days of the Baroque genius Francesco Borromini, or in other poems a richly imagined extrapolation from the silent premises of a painting.

This selection, chosen by Andrew Motion himself from three decades of work, is an outstanding representation of the British poet''s varied body of work--elegies, sonnets, poems of social and political observation, and unsentimental poems about childhood, post-war England, the natural world. About his poetry, Motion has observed: "I want my writing to be as clear as water. No ornate language; very few obvious tricks. I want readers to be able to see all the way down through its surfaces into the swamp. I want them to feel they''re in a world they thought they knew, but which turns out to be stranger, more charged, more disturbed than they realized. In truth, creating this world is a more theatrical operation than the writing admits, and it''s this discretion about strong feeling, and strong feeling itself, which keeps drawing me back to the writers I most admire: Wordsworth, Edward Thomas, Philip Larkin." A significant and consistent feature of Motion''s work, throughout his shifts in style and changes in imaginative topographies, is his signature clarity of observation, his unwillingness to sacrifice intelligibility or embrace opacity. "The best poems," Motion has said, "are those which speak to us about the important things in our lives in a way that we never forget."

What is the truth about the mysterious Dr Cake? Why, at his funeral, is there no name on the brass plate so ostentatiously screwed into his coffin-lid? Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate, has written a tantalising novel about poets and their afterlife.

The Pleasure Steamers is Andrew Motion''s first collection of poems. Formally adventurous, in the way his work has continued to be, the collection explores relationships, geographies and the legacy of the past to the present. Long sequences such as Inland and Anniversaries are interspersed with short, sharp lyrics which display the control, flare and delicacy which are the hallmarks of the Poet Laureate.

Julio de 1802. En las marismas de la orilla oriental del Támesis se levanta La Hispaniola, la posada de Jim Hawkins y su hijo. El joven Jim se pasa los días vagando por el estuario envuelto en la bruma, haciendo recados para su padre y escuchando sus relatos en la bodega: historias de aventuras en alta mar, de maldiciones, asesinatos y venganzas, un tesoro enterrado... y de un hombre con una pata de palo. Una noche, una joven misteriosa llamada Natty llega con una petición para Jim de su padre, John Silver el Largo. Envejecido y débil, pero conservando todavía una extraña fuerza, el pirata propone que Jim y Natty zarpen hacia la isla del tesoro en busca de la fortuna oculta del capitán Flint. A tal propósito, Silver ya ha fletado un barco y ha contratado a una curtida tripulación, cuyo capitán sólo espera el mapa, que permanece guardado bajo llave en La Hispaniola. A toda prisa, huyendo de Londres, Jim y Natty parten tras los pasos de sus padres, y su vacilante amistad va estrechándose día tras día. Pero la emoción de la odisea en el océano deja paso al terror cuando el Nightingale llega a su destino porque parece que la isla del tesoro no está tan deshabitada como en el pasado...

Luglio 1802. Sulle rive paludose del Tamigi sorge l’Hispaniola, la locanda di Jim Hawkins e suo figlio. Il giovane Jim passa le sue giornate vagando per l’estuario, obbedendo agli ordini del padre e ascoltandolo parlare di avventure in alto mare, maledizioni, omicidi, rapine, vendetta, e di un uomo con una gamba di legno. Una notte una fanciulla misteriosa di nome Natty arriva in barca portando a Jim una richiesta da parte di Long John Silver, suo padre. Vecchio e debole, ma ancora dotato di un irresistibile potere, il pirata vuole che Jim e Natty tornino all’Isola del Tesoro in cerca dell’argento nascosto dal capitano Flint. Silver ha armato una barca e messo insieme un equipaggio. È tutto pronto: manca solo la mappa dell’isola. Per ottenerla è indispensabile la complicità di Jim, che, attratto dal richiamo dell’ignoto e dal fascino di Natty, tradisce il padre e parte di nascosto dopo avergli sottratto il prezioso documento. Jim e Natty ripercorrono così le tracce della grande avventura dei genitori, e la loro strana amicizia cresce di giorno in giorno sulle onde dell’oceano. Ma il fascino del viaggio cede il passo al terrore quando, approdati all’isola, scoprono che non è disabitata come credevano. Nobili marinai, pirati assassini, storie d’amore, eroismo e ineffabile crudeltà: Ritorno all’Isola del Tesoro è un’avventura appassionante, degno seguito del capolavoro di Robert Louis Stevenson, raccontata con maestria da un grande scrittore e resa in italiano dalla traduzione d’autore di Michele Mari.

William Barnes was born in 1801 near Sturminster Newton in Dorset, of a farming family. He learned Greek, Latin and Music, taught himself wood-engraving, and in 1823 became a schoolmaster in Mere. Among his best-known books of poetry are Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect (1844) and Hwomely Rhymes (1859).

London im Sommer 1802, rund 40 Jahre nach den dramatischen Ereignissen auf der Schatzinsel. Jim Hawkins jr. und Natty, die Tochter des geläuterten Piratenkapitäns Long John Silver, sollen im Auftrag ihres Vaters zur Schatzinsel in die Karibik aufbrechen, um den restlichen Silberschatz zu bergen

Eschewing the confessional or critical tone of some memoirs, and the investigatory or elucidatory approaches of others, Motion strives to recreate the voice and vision of the boy he once was, taking care not to sully or distort with hindsight what is felt to be still very much alive in memory. Whether recounting his first time salmon fishing in Scotland with his father, the horrors of prep school at the young age of seven, or his discovery of Thomas Hardy and Bob Dylan, Motion imbues his recollections with the quicksilver emotions of the boy he was and the perceptions of the poet he will be; readers of Motion''s poetry will recognize many of these experiences as the antecedents of the poems. Yet this memoir is far more than a guide to the life behind the poems; it is a stand against the ineluctability of time''s passing, an insistence that what has been "felt in the blood, and felt along the heart," as in the book''s title and epigraph from Wordsworth, can be neither taken from us nor los

"Full of big themes such as courage, greed, loyalty and obsession, "The New World" is still an adventure story first and foremost. . . . An entertaining homage that is deeply felt and sincere." --"The Guardian" (UK) Washed ashore after escaping Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins and his companion Natty find themselves stranded on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Their ship, the "Nightingale," has been destroyed, and besides one other crew member, they are the only survivors. Before they can even grasp the full scope of their predicament, they realize they are not alone on the beach. When a band of Native Americans approaches the shore in a threatening fury, they brutally kill Jim and Natty''s last shipmate, rob their dead crew, and take the two desperate survivors hostage. Suddenly, Jim and Natty are thrust into an adventure that takes them all across the unruly American South. Starting with a desperate escape from a violent chief who obsessively keeps close on their trail, they join up with a troupe of entertainers who take them to a thriving and dangerous New Orleans, and seek the closest port so they can set sail for home once again. In magnificent, free-wheeling prose and in a high-flying style, Andrew Motion has spun a fantastic yarn that will win the hearts of adventure lovers everywhere.

In this new collection, Andrew Motion has written an incisive and moving account of what it means when the past, and the sense of self it gives, come to outweigh the present. These poems are neither heroic nor dramatic but simply human. The elegy for a dear friend enacts the jolting nature of such a loss, the doubts that have overtaken what once were certainties, and above all how we manage and convey what we feel. A series of lightly formed sonnets shows how formal constraint can be used to meet the intensities of such themes.

Twelve poems, each printed in color ink on a bookmark and signed and numbered by the poet.