Andrew Motion

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Andrew Motion, 2009

Sir Andrew Motion (born October 26, 1952 in London ) is an English poet , novelist and biographer . From 1999 to 2009 he was the UK Poet Laureate . He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London .

Life and work

Motion comes from a family of brewers and grew up in Braintree . He was sent to a boarding school run by a friend of his grandfather's when he was seven . He then went to school in Radley , Oxfordshire , where he first came into contact with poetry. His mother died early as a result of a riding accident.

He studied at Oxford, where he was awarded the Newdigate Prize in 1975 for a poem ( The Tides ). He then became a lecturer in English at University College Oxford , before teaching at the University of Hull from 1976 to 1981 . During this time he dealt intensively with the work of Edward Thomas and met Philip Larkin , whose official biographer he became. Motion then published the Poetry Review until 1983 and was then in a leading position at the London publisher Chatto and Windus until 1989 . He later assumed Malcolm Bradbury's professorship in creative writing at the University of East Anglia .

On May 1, 1999, Andrew Motion succeeded Ted Hughes Poet Laureate. The decision was controversial; Seamus Heaney , Derek Walcott and Carol Ann Duffy were considered favorites after Hughes' death. Motion's term of office was limited to ten years - until then the court poet had always been appointed for life. He later said that he did not know what to expect from the position and that he often found it to be a heavy burden. Carol Ann Duffy became his successor. In 2009 he was named a Knight Bachelor for his services to literature .

Motion's lyrics are considered reserved and thoughtful. He himself strives for a clear language that should enable the reader to penetrate into the depths of the lyric. The death of his mother often led him to search his poems for the meaning of apparently accidental events.

Motion is one of the initiators of The Poetry Archive , an online collection of author readings . He has been married twice and lives in north London.

Awards (selection)

Works (selection)

  • 1976: domestic
  • 1978: The Pleasure Steamers
  • 1980: The Poetry of Edward Thomas
  • 1981: Independence
  • 1982: Philip Larkin
  • 1982: Secret Narratives
  • 1984: Dangerous Play
  • 1986: The Lamberts: George, Constant and Kit
  • 1987: Natural Causes
  • 1991: Love in a Life
  • 1993: Philip Larkin, a Writer's Life
  • 1994: The Price of Everything
  • 1997: Keats : A Biography
  • 1997: Salt Water
  • 2000: Wainewright the Poisoner
  • 2002: Public Property
  • 2003: The Invention of Dr Cake
  • 2006: In the Blood: A Memoir of My Childhood
  • 2008: Ways of Life: On Places, Painters and Poets
  • 2009: The Cinder Path
  • 2012: The Customs House
  • 2012: Silver (German: Silver. Return to Treasure Island. Mareverlag, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-86648-188-6 ).
  • 2014: The New World

literature

  • Martin Booth: British Poetry 1964 to 1984: Driving through the Barricades. London 1985, pp. 253f.
  • Ronald Carter, John McRae: The Routledge Guide to Modern English Writing: Britain and Ireland. London 2004, p. 176ff.

Web links

Commons : Andrew Motion  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Profile: Andrew Motion, the poet laureate. In: The Sunday Times. September 14, 2008
  2. ^ Andrew Motion, "Poetry needs us to say that it matters". In: The Independent. April 17, 2009
  3. ^ A b c Andrew Motion. In: The Poetry Archive
  4. ↑ Michael White and Fiachra Gibbons: Andrew Motion to be poet laureate. In: The Guardian. May 19, 1999
  5. ^ Andrew Motion: Yet once more, O ye laurels. In: The Guardian. March 21, 2009
  6. ↑ Honors for Lee, Faldo and Delia. on BBC News. June 12, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Motion, Andrew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Motion, Sir Andrew
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer, former Poet Laureate
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH London