Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Art & Literature

A charming, quirky memoir from British author Arthur Calder-Marshall, recalling his youth in 1920s England. The title needs to be taken quite literally as much of the narrative revolves around the shadowy figure of occultist Aleister Crowley, at the height of his dubious powers during this era. As boys growing up in a small country town, Arthur and his brother befriend an eccentric poet, whom they dub Vicky Bird—in fact a fairly well-known literary figure called Victor Neuberg. He is haunted by some romantic tragedy in his past, in which Crowley may be implicated.

Blindness in the 1950s was a social stigma. Stephen's mother wanted a normal life for him, so he fought desperately to uphold the illusion of sight. For a child frantic to fit in, each day was an exhausting pretence. He managed to ride a bike, when even reading involved pressing his nose to the page and painfully forcing his eyes to concentrate. Head up, he strode through a carefully memorized labyrinth of streets, hoping to fool passers-by that he could actually see.

Andrew Motion has been close to the centers of British poetry for over fifty years. Sleeping on Islands is his clear-sighted and open-hearted account of this remarkable career. It takes us from scenes of a teenage home-life colored by tragedy and silence—where writing was as much a refuge as an assertion—to the excruciations of early public appearances, to the decade he spent as Poet Laureate, promoting and ensuring the central place of poetry in a nation's character.