Randomly Moving Particles
Poems
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
