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
pain real alive
Jenni Fagan is the real thing, and The Panopticon is a real treat: maturely alive to the pains of maturing, and cleverly amused as well as appalled by what it finds in the world.
powerful interesting way
In a fragile environment, we need to be aware of ourselves as members of a uniquely powerful species living among other species who are quite as interesting as we are but vulnerable to us because we are cleverer in more destructive ways.
heart emotional forget
Poems are a hotline to our hearts, and we forget this emotional power at our peril
wordsworth poet admire
But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others.
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.
heaven
I'm ensuring my place in heaven.
instant lingering readings
The readings are at once instant in their appeal, and lingering in their impact.
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.
absolute people
I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme.
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.
poetry
In a general way, I want to be a kind of flag-waver, bunting hanger-up, drum-beater, you name it, for poetry.
best poems public subject
The best public poems aren't necessarily those that go at the subject like a bull at a gate.
history human people poetry reading time
More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race.