Andrew Motion poem

[Raederle]

I posted on What We Are Reading and Hollowtalk suggested I post on here too. Maybe there are some teachers who remember this poem.

DS2 was premature and very ill. When he was in the incubator, he slept all the time. He didn’t open his eyes for weeks. It felt like he was hibernating.

I remember a phrase came to me: he could survive for years like this, but we could not.

It made me think of some Andrew Motion poems I studied at secondary school over 30 years ago. One was ‘In The Attic’ and it was about his mum who fell off a horse and was in a coma. It’s not ‘In The Attic’ but similar/written at same time.

I think the phrase comes from a poem about his mum being in hospital and him visiting her but I can’t find it. I have his Selected Poems and it’s not in there.

DS2 is 9 now so that period is well behind us, but I still think of that phrase and how much it resonated with me at the time and I’d really like to read the poem again.

I wonder if this or this would help.
Good Luck

@Raederle I've been thinking about this ever since! Wouldn't AM have said "she" not "he", as he was talking about his mum, but maybe you remembered it then as "he" because of your son?

I suppose you've seen this.

hollowtalk I think it would be: she could survive for years like this, but we could not. I changed it in my head for DS but I felt strongly that it wasn’t my thought, that it came from a poem.

Been thinking more about it. Have read Motion’s poetry collection ‘Essex Clay’ which is a poem version of his memoir ‘In My Blood’. It is all about his mother’s accident but does not contain that phrase.

When I read the poem as a teenager, they were set out in a series. Two or three (including the one with my phrase) and then ‘In The Attic’. I also remembered another phrase: ‘a bright scab like an ornament’.

Google gives me no joy.

I’m actually thinking of writing to Andrew Motion and asking him. Which shows how much it resonates with me as I’m very British and the thought makes me cringe.

Thank you Dan. If I could just narrow it down to one of his poetry collections. It seems overkill to buy them - he’s written a lot. But maybe that’s preferable to writing to him!

Try the Poetry Library at the South Bank - they may be able to help especially as it’s Andrew Motion ( I think he had the concept/ set it up)

Bookish - that’s genius. I am near London so could make a special trip once the DCs are back at school.

I was thinking you could write to Andrew Motion! Why not? He would be delighted to know his words has such resonance.

I was wondering whether your old English teacher would be still alive. My old school has a Facebook group and it would be possible to find out where teachers are through that.

I think you'll find it in here. The poem about the scab is there, and In the Attic, too. I think this might well be the book you're thinking of, @Raederle.

Arrgh, sorry, that's the book you have.

Are you sure it was him? I heard an interview with an author whose mother had fallen into a coma after a riding accident but it wasn’t Andrew motion.

Shit memory is the strangest thing. Those are the poems hollowtalk - the first, the second etc. Those are the poems I remember and I thought I did have that book but now I can’t find it.

So happy to have read them. I can stop thinking about it now.

That phrase was mine. DS2 had bleeds on the brain which led to hydrocephalus and neurosurgery when he was 9 months. It must have been Motion’s experience of his mother being in hospital with a head injury that I related to so much.

I am very pleased to have unpicked this with your help. 9 years later and the ripples of what happened to DS2 are still being felt, but this feels good.