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
body die expect great lived might people poems poets settle thinking three work written
If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful.
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There are plenty of examples of people who have had busy lives out there in the world, trying to do good, and written very well at the same time.
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If people connect me with the Romantics in general, they probably connect me most with Keats. But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others.
long people hell
Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels.
people feelings want
I don't want my poems to be sentimental, though I do acknowledge that sentiment is probably rather under-reported in a lot of people's feelings a lot of the time.
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Poetry is at the centre of my life, too, emotionally speaking, and intellectually speaking - it's just that I'm one of those people who enjoy doing other stuff as well.
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More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race.
absolute people
I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme.
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Broodingly suggestive of Donne's intellectual figure as well as his witty sensuality, it is also a picture of great intrinsic beauty and the bewitching evocation of an age. The National Portrait Gallery is its natural home. The picture is cheap at the price, and if we don't buy it someone else will.
carry dream hope time
I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time.
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It is extremely desolating news that he should have died when he was only 68 and always seemed so much younger,
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I wanted to reimagine the role, in a way that was respectful of its traditional responsibilities but made them part of a wider pattern of poetry about national incidents, events, preoccupations; and to spend a great deal of time going to schools trying to demystify poetry.
carefully clue knowingly knows maintained mind side
I've always thought that the balance between the side of my mind that knows what it is doing and the side that really hasn't got a clue has to be carefully maintained because if you write too knowingly then you get chilly, and if you write too unknowingly you write bollocks that nobody else can understand.
believer carry given great head life night remarks whatever
I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable.