Public Property, by Andrew Motion

One night last week I went to a reading by Andrew Motion, thrilled at the opportunity to hear one of my favorite poets, and so close to home! I heard Motion, Poet Laureate of England from 1999 to 2009, read once before, in Toronto, at the International Festival of Authors. I was profoundly moved and changed by that experience, partly of course by the poems themselves with their richly evocative detail, their deeply felt experience, and my own sudden shock of recognition, but also partly by th...