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In his introduction to this unique Folio anthology, Andrew Motion tells us the best war poetry is ‘concerned with much more than war itself – which helps to explain why we take it so much to heart’. It is a promise fulfilled in the former Poet Laureate’s brilliant, eclectic selection, stretching from translations from Homer’s Iliad (‘the first and greatest of all war poems’) to 20th-century verse written in the shadow of nuclear apocalypse. Motion’s net takes in Anglo-Saxon epic, Cavalier poetry from the English Civil War and reactions to the horrors of the Blitz. There are works translated from classical Greek, Latin and Chinese, from medieval Welsh and from modern Polish and German. There is a strong showing from the First World War, with well-loved works by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but Motion seeks also to include lesser-heard voices on war, in poems by women including Emily Dickinson, Stevie Smith and Elizabeth Bishop. Bound in a camouflage-like binding The Folio Book of War Poetry is an anthology with as much to tell about human conflict as any history book, curated by one of Britain’s greatest living poets.

Production Details

Bound in cloth printed and blocked with a design by Jonathan Lloyd
Blocked slipcase

Dimensions

9½ inches x 6¾ inches

Font

Set in Plantin

Pages

376 pages

Author

Andrew Motion

Illustrated by

Neil Gower

Illustration

Full colour title-page spread by Jonathan Lloyd, 10 integrated motifs printed in a second colour by Neil Gower

Publication Date

12/10/2021

Andrew Motion

The Folio Book of War Poetry

CA$120

In an exclusive Folio anthology illustrated by Jonathan Lloyd and Neil Gower, former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion gathers together the greatest war poetry, from antiquity to the Cold War and beyond.

Illustrated by Neil Gower

The Folio Book of War Poetry

CA$120

About the Illustrator

Neil Gower

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed freelance illustrator and artist, working across a range of media and styles. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with most major publishing houses in the UK and US, including Penguin, Random House, Transworld, Knopf and magazines such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He was also the contributing artist to Conde Nast Traveller in New York for ten years. His celebrated book jacket designs include all the William Golding titles for Faber, as well as Bill Bryson’s entire backlist for Transworld. Neil has worked on over 100 binding designs for The Folio Society. His recent projects also include private commissions for Sir Roy Strong and Raymond Blanc. Marking a shift from distilling the words of others into paint, his first collection of poetry, Meet Me in Palermo, was released in 2021. He lives in Lewes, Sussex and – when global events permit – Kreuzberg, Berlin.

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About the Illustrator

Neil Gower

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed freelance illustrator and artist, working across a range of media and styles. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with most major publishing houses in the UK and US, including Penguin, Random House, Transworld, Knopf and magazines such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He was also the contributing artist to Conde Nast Traveller in New York for ten years. His celebrated book jacket designs include all the William Golding titles for Faber, as well as Bill Bryson’s entire backlist for Transworld. Neil has worked on over 100 binding designs for The Folio Society. His recent projects also include private commissions for Sir Roy Strong and Raymond Blanc. Marking a shift from distilling the words of others into paint, his first collection of poetry, Meet Me in Palermo, was released in 2021. He lives in Lewes, Sussex and – when global events permit – Kreuzberg, Berlin.

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About the Illustrator

Neil Gower

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed freelance illustrator and artist, working across a range of media and styles. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with most major publishing houses in the UK and US, including Penguin, Random House, Transworld, Knopf and magazines such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He was also the contributing artist to Conde Nast Traveller in New York for ten years. His celebrated book jacket designs include all the William Golding titles for Faber, as well as Bill Bryson’s entire backlist for Transworld. Neil has worked on over 100 binding designs for The Folio Society. His recent projects also include private commissions for Sir Roy Strong and Raymond Blanc. Marking a shift from distilling the words of others into paint, his first collection of poetry, Meet Me in Palermo, was released in 2021. He lives in Lewes, Sussex and – when global events permit – Kreuzberg, Berlin.

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About the Illustrator

Neil Gower

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed freelance illustrator and artist, working across a range of media and styles. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with most major publishing houses in the UK and US, including Penguin, Random House, Transworld, Knopf and magazines such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He was also the contributing artist to Conde Nast Traveller in New York for ten years. His celebrated book jacket designs include all the William Golding titles for Faber, as well as Bill Bryson’s entire backlist for Transworld. Neil has worked on over 100 binding designs for The Folio Society. His recent projects also include private commissions for Sir Roy Strong and Raymond Blanc. Marking a shift from distilling the words of others into paint, his first collection of poetry, Meet Me in Palermo, was released in 2021. He lives in Lewes, Sussex and – when global events permit – Kreuzberg, Berlin.

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About the Illustrator

Neil Gower

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed freelance illustrator and artist, working across a range of media and styles. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with most major publishing houses in the UK and US, including Penguin, Random House, Transworld, Knopf and magazines such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He was also the contributing artist to Conde Nast Traveller in New York for ten years. His celebrated book jacket designs include all the William Golding titles for Faber, as well as Bill Bryson’s entire backlist for Transworld. Neil has worked on over 100 binding designs for The Folio Society. His recent projects also include private commissions for Sir Roy Strong and Raymond Blanc. Marking a shift from distilling the words of others into paint, his first collection of poetry, Meet Me in Palermo, was released in 2021. He lives in Lewes, Sussex and – when global events permit – Kreuzberg, Berlin.

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About the Illustrator

Neil Gower

Neil Gower is an internationally acclaimed freelance illustrator and artist, working across a range of media and styles. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with most major publishing houses in the UK and US, including Penguin, Random House, Transworld, Knopf and magazines such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He was also the contributing artist to Conde Nast Traveller in New York for ten years. His celebrated book jacket designs include all the William Golding titles for Faber, as well as Bill Bryson’s entire backlist for Transworld. Neil has worked on over 100 binding designs for The Folio Society. His recent projects also include private commissions for Sir Roy Strong and Raymond Blanc. Marking a shift from distilling the words of others into paint, his first collection of poetry, Meet Me in Palermo, was released in 2021. He lives in Lewes, Sussex and – when global events permit – Kreuzberg, Berlin.

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About the Introducer

Andrew Motion

Andrew Motion is an English poet, novelist and biographer. After graduating from the University of Oxford, where he studied under W. H Auden, he taught English at Hull University alongside Philip Larkin, whose official biographer he later became. In the 1980s, he edited the Poetry Review and acted as poetry editor at Chatto & Windus. Motion was UK Poet Laureate from 1999–2009. During this period, he founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and poets reading their own work. Questions of time, the erosion of places and the inner workings of memory are all themes that are encoded in Motion’s own poetry. The figure of the soldier appears in many of his poems; Motion has spent time with those who have served in wars, from World War Two to Afghanistan, and bears witness in his writing to their experiences of survival and death. He now lives in Baltimore, USA, where he is currently Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University.