Randomly Moving Particles: Poems

by Andrew Motion

Overview

Randomly Moving Particles is built from two long poems that form its opening and close, connected by three shorter pieces. The title poem, in a kaleidoscope of compelling scenes, engages with subjects that include migration, placement, loss, space exploration, and current British and American politics. It is a clarifying action and reaction between terra and solar system, mundanity and possibility, taking us from the grit of road surfaces to the distant glimpses of satellites. The final poem, “How Do the Dead Walk,” combines mythic reach with acute observation of the familiar, in order to address issues of contemporary violence. It is altogether more dreamlike, even in its tangibly military moments, grasping as it does at phantoms and intermediate plains. Andrew Motion’s expansive new poetry collection is direct in its emotional appeal and ambitious in its scope, all while retaining the cinematic vision and startling expression that so freshly lit the lines of his last, Essex Clay.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822988229
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	03/23/2021
Series:	Pitt Poetry Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	119
File size:	357 KB

About the Author

Andrew Motion is professor of creative writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and co-founder of the online Poetry Archive. He has received numerous awards for his poetry, and has published four celebrated biographies. His group study The Lamberts won the Somerset Maugham Award and his authorized life of Philip Larkin won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. Motion was knighted in the United Kingdom for his services to poetry in 2009.

Table of Contents

Contents One Randomly Moving Particles Two Rainfall The White Bear What the Grass Says Three How Do the Dead Walk 1. The Fire Pit 2. Under the Ground 3. Home Farm 4. Charlie Alpha 7 Acknowledgements

Editorial Reviews

04/19/2021

Former U.K. poet laureate Motion (Public Property) explores the subjects of migration, memory, and political landscape in this stirring collection. At the book’s center, three compact poems attend to the fragility of species, giving lyrical voice to “the reliable green silence” of grasses and the history of rain. The first of two long narrative sequences is a personal reckoning with the culture and politics of the United States, the poet’s adopted home since 2015. Whitman’s influence is unmistakable: “Because I am dredging memory and glad to./ Because I respond to the gravitational pull/ (chewing my fingernails admittedly, asking/ have I eaten my own body weight.” An ambitious persona poem closes the book, recounting the story of Major H, who returns to Essex after a tour of duty in Afghanistan with the 7th Armoured Division. Like his heroic forebears of Greek and Roman epic, Major H journeys to the underworld and encounters ghosts, returning “Like a hero covered in dirt/ who supports the weight of the globe.” Readers may find the veteran’s violent homecoming is more Capote than Virgil, but Motion offers an ambitious and engaging inquiry into mortality, politics, and place. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Motion offers an ambitious and engaging inquiry into mortality, politics, and place.” —Publishers Weekly
 


“[Andrew Motion] is unhesitating in his reservations about contemporary politics and climate change, but the primacy of his craft in poetry is never in question. ‘Here I am corrupt yet become unearthly innocent’: this, one of the many aphorisms that populate the volume, ably stands for the open, despairing, tenacious figure of the poet.” —Library Journal, starred review

Past Praise for Andrew Motion:
“Unpredictable, unsentimentally elegant, Motion has inherited all the rhythmic and narrative genius of Robert Frost. ‘I stamp both feet and disappear in a cloud,’ he announces in Fresh Water. Lucky for us, he's speaking metaphorically.” —Martha Silano

From the Publisher

★ 07/01/2021

Motion (Coming in to Land) is perhaps best known to readers in the United States as Ted Hughes's successor to the post of poet laureate of the United Kingdom; he acquitted himself with all possible dignity in that thankless job until 2009. Motion's output as a poet has been prolific and almost tireless; this latest collection finds him in Maryland, trying to come to terms with his own story and the life of our ailing planet. Motion's style owes much not only to his avowed inspirations (W. H. Auden, Edward Thomas), but also to the darkly surreal, jolting manner of English-language poetry since the 1980s. The treasure of this collection is the long title sequence, in which Motion throws the shadow of the Aeneid over contemporary events, generating many lines that are at once memorable and unnerving. He is unhesitating in his reservations about contemporary politics and climate change, but the primacy of his craft in poetry is never in question. "Here I am corrupt yet become unearthly innocent": this, one of the many aphorisms that populate the volume, ably stands for the open, despairing, tenacious figure of the poet. VERDICT A fine contribution to the ongoing labors of a leading poet, and a good introduction to Motion's approach for readers new to his work.—Graham Christian, formerly of Andover-Harvard Theological Lib., Cambridge, MA

Library Journal