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From the former Poet Laureate, a remarkable contemplation of departure and return.
Andrew Motion's new collection gives a moving account of the friction and interplay between past and present. In the opening elegies for friends and former versions of the self, and in the long title sequence which completes the book, he explores the ways in which regrets compete with hope, and the appetite for life is always a prey to hard facts of mortality. The energy and reach of these poems opens a new chapter in Motion's writing, remaining true to the elegiac subjects which have always been his main concern, while adding new depths of pathos and resonance.