We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Andrew Motion is a case of existential irony. His work is relatively free of the ironic detachment and sardonic observation of the human condition.
Motion is the perfect name for this poet because he truly is a writer of poetry in motion. Though not exclusively so, his categorization as a narrative poet is justified; his verse moves along a tract of storytelling that often notably blurs many of the distinctions between prose and poetry.
Motion once opened a poem with the suggestion that in another life he would be a darling of the Renaissance. It is a brutally honest admission; the almost complete lack of irony has made him an increasingly isolated figure in the world of modern literature: a purveyor of sincerity. In a poem of remembrance about his father, the speaker makes the kind of admission that is perhaps only found in poetry these days.
It certainly is only rarely to be found in the world of visual arts without an ironic capper that undermines the emotional investment:. It is an image—simple yet elegantly truthful and unabashedly sentimental—that would go unnoticed in the romantic poetry of the Renaissance. In the world of the 21st century, however, such imagery almost threatens to become laughably sincere.
Then leaning close in the kitchen rehearsing his day —. I fan my face and smile: Ah why should life alt labour be? We only toil who are the first of things , and glance outside. By the window now. I am podding beans for supper and see him wait by the shelter steps, one hand swinging his yellow bucket and brushes.
A flabby pop, and my thumb slides through moist soft fur. I tell him Wait. Let me finish these first , slewing empty pods on the table then out, crouched in the shelter. We hardly speak — bending and turning and bending embarrassed, the cold smell. Which of us knocks the light? He straightens and sighs, watching the bulb sway.
What is it? I say,. Shall we sleep here tonight? In the shelter, to try it? What do you think? They have dragged the single spare mattress out, one edge dark with dew from the lawn. Shall I turn out the light?
Only the thin moon and stars. The whitewash! Then they are gone — the door squeaking heavily shut as he whispers Wait. Are you there? Of course. She says it smiling.
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Do you exist? Robert Frost. Emily Dickinson. William Blake. Langston Hughes. William Shakespeare. William Wordsworth. Rabindranath Tagore. Pablo Neruda. Shel Silverstein.
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