Andrew Motion
Andrew Motion
Sir Andrew Motion, FRSLis an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work. In 2012, he became President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, taking over from Bill Bryson...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 October 1952
best poems public subject
The best public poems aren't necessarily those that go at the subject like a bull at a gate.
poetry
In a general way, I want to be a kind of flag-waver, bunting hanger-up, drum-beater, you name it, for poetry.
hesitation
I want to write poems which are very emotional, but I would have some hesitation in saying I want to write poems which are sentimental.
absolute people
I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme.
gigantic partly poems poetry poets shift
Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding, there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground, poets in schools, football clubs, zoos.
heaven
I'm ensuring my place in heaven.
writing want hats
But I can't and don't ever want to write bell-yanking confetti-tossing hat-throwing poems.
writing way poet
But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.
flames light bombs
Each sudden gust of light explains itself as flames, but neither they, nor even bombs redoubled on the hills tonight can quite include me in their fear.
moving want sympathetic
I am a vigilant monarchist. I want to see things evolve. The direction the monarchy seems to be moving in - towards a more mainland-European model - is one I would feel sympathetic about.
writing done way
I am writing more than I have ever done. My life has come back to me in the most extraordinary way.
beautiful extraordinary-person imagination
I deeply adored my mum. She was an extraordinary person, even for the prejudice I'm likely to have. She was beautiful, amusing, a tremendous elaborator of things into comic proportions and extravagant in her imagination.
writing two tea
I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am.
beautiful buying painting
I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don't make enough money.