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
deal great national pattern poetry respectful schools spend time trying wider
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.
allow behind family good laureate miss open poet poetry role royal tradition trick weight
Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether, the trick they miss is that being called this thing, with the weight of tradition behind it, and with the association of the Royal family, does allow you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.
archives board good libraries pleasure poetry precisely saying sort
I'm not precisely saying that a really good board meeting at the MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Coucil) makes me want to go and write poetry, but there is a pleasure in doing that sort of thing well.
centre life people poetry speaking stuff
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.
history human people poetry reading time
More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race.
knows mind nature obligation poems poetry resist side wish work written
I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry.
poetry
In a general way, I want to be a kind of flag-waver, bunting hanger-up, drum-beater, you name it, for poetry.
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.
bombs explains fear gust hills include light neither nor quite sudden tonight
Each sudden gust of light explains itselfas flames, but neither they, nor even bombs redoubled on the hills tonight can quite include me in their fear (Leaving Belfast)
beauty buy cheap figure gallery great intrinsic national natural picture portrait suggestive witty
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.
book deeply literature stricken written
This is a book written by someone obsessed, stricken and deeply loving. There is nothing like it in literature.
hear interests offer poems poets rights tone unique
Actors may (or may not) read poems well, but poets have unique rights to their work, and unique insights and interests to offer as we hear their idiom, pacing, tone and emphases,
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.