The Cinder Path by Sir Andrew Motion

by Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion's new collection (his first since Public Property in 2002) offers a ground-breaking variety of lyrics, love poems and elegies, in which private domains of feeling infer other lives and a shared humanity - exploring how people cope with threats to and in the world around them, as soldiers, lovers, artists, writers and citizens. The conversational tone and formal variety of these poems both shapes and diversifies their response to loss and its inevitabilities.Here are poems about the last surviving veteran of the trenches; poems which work with found materials drawn from the contiguous worlds of prose; poems which elicit the parallel lives glimpsed in paintings, or the other lives of birds, trees and weather (as of an ordinariness just out of reach). An unemphatic evenness of handling, in the detailing of ordinary destinies, alternates with capacious panoramas of longing and summation, and the collection ends with a remarkable group of directly autobiographical poems about the life and times of the poet's father.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.

Motion was appointed Poet Laureate on 1 May 1999, following the death of Ted Hughes, the previous incumbent. The Nobel Prize-winning Northern Irish poet and translator Seamus Heaney had ruled himself out for the post. Breaking with the tradition of the laureate retaining the post for life, Motion stipulated that he would stay for only ten years. The yearly stipend of £200 was increased to £5,000 and he received the customary butt of sack.

He wanted to write "poems about things in the news, and commissions from people or organisations involved with ordinary life," rather than be seen a 'courtier'. So, he wrote "for the TUC about liberty, about homelessness for the Salvation Army, about bullying for ChildLine, about the foot and mouth outbreak for the Today programme, about the Paddington rail disaster, the 11 September attacks and Harry Patch for the BBC, and more recently about shell shock for the charity Combat Stress, and climate change for the song cycle I've finished for Cambridge University with Peter Maxwell Davies." In 2003, Motion wrote Regime change, a poem in protest at Invasion of Iraq from the point of view of Death walking the streets during the conflict, and in 2005, Spring Wedding in honour of the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker Bowles. Commissioned to write in the honour of 109 year old Harry Patch, the last surviving 'Tommy' to have fought in World War I, Motion composed a five part poem, read and received by Patch at the Bishop's Palace in Wells in 2008. As laureate, he also founded the Poetry Archive an on-line library of historic and contemporary recordings of poets reciting their own work.

Motion remarked that he found some of the duties attendant to the post of poet laureate difficult and onerous and that the appointment had been "very, very damaging to [his] work". The appointment of Motion met with criticism from some quarters. As he prepared to stand down from the job, Motion published an article in The Guardian which concluded, "To have had 10 years working as laureate has been remarkable. Sometimes it's been remarkably difficult, the laureate has to take a lot of flak, one way or another. More often it has been remarkably fulfilling. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I'm giving it up – especially since I mean to continue working for poetry." Motion spent his last day as Poet Laureate holding a creative writing class at his alma mater, Radley College, before giving a poetry reading and thanking Peter Way, the man who taught him English at Radley, for making him who he was. Carol Ann Duffy succeeded him as Poet Laureate on 1 May 2009.

Andrew Motion nació en 1952. Estudió en el University College de Oxford y empezó su carrera enseñando inglés en la Universidad de Hull. También ha sido director de Poetry Review, director editorial de Chatto & Windus, y Poeta Laureado; asimismo, fue cofundador del Poetry Archive, y en 2009 se le concedió el título de Sir por su obra literaria. En la actualidad es profesor de escritura creativa en el Royal Holloway, de la Universidad de Londres. Es miembro de la Royal Society of Literature y vive en Londres. Con un elenco de nobles marineros y crueles piratas, y llena de historias de amor y de valentía, Regreso a la isla del tesoro es una trepidante continuación de La isla del tesoro, escrita con extraordinaria autenticidad y fuerza imaginativa por uno de los grandes escritores ingleses actuales.

Reviews

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 2 out of 5]

anybody can get published I guess

[Steph De Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been wanting to try Motion's poetry for years, so I was excited to happen upon a copy of "The Cinder Path" in my local second-hand bookshop. Unfortunately, this tale does not have a happy ending: I found Motion's writing skilful and well-observed but, ultimately, rather cold and inaccessible. I simply wasn't able to connect with these poems; in several cases, I couldn't even grasp their intended themes. I will probably try at least one more collection before giving up on Motion entirely, as I really did expect to enjoy his work, but my expectations are now considerably lower than they were when I first opened "The Cinder Path".

[Setareh Ebrahimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible that I actually managed to finish a book with a baby. A collection of accomplished, well thought out and well formed poems. Motion knows how to write poems and deserves the success he has had. Rarely I wondered if some poems were too prosey or too cleaned up and trimmed away, whilst at the same time being very wordy. At times perhaps there could have been a pinch more heart. But still there was a lot of beautiful, startling imagery, especially towards the end when Motion wrote about his father. Would recommend!

[Nick Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

last poems about father are good

[Michael Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this a lot, there are some very good poems here, and it's helped if you know the books Motion has also clearly read too. Some of these poems take lines from other people's work and makes poems about the lines, which is an interesting idea. There is also the story of his father's death which is really touching, and other personal touches that make this collection come alive. I liked it.

I remember seeing Motion read poems from this collection at Newcastle University once, he seemed like a nice guy. I'll have to find more of his stuff now.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

a helpful book to dip into when very busy, as I've been this week. mostly, Andrew Motion is like a very sweet and careful person whose jokes aren't hugely funny and whose ideas are highly unoriginal but nonetheless someone you have no problem spending some time with. the final part of the book, though, the collection about his father, is sometimes perfect.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked quite a few of these, by the former poet laureate.

[Chris Purser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good collection of poems from the former poet laureate.