Andrew Motion
born October 26, 1952, London, England
British poet, biographer, and novelist,
especially noted for his narrative poetry,
who was poet laureate of England from 1999
to 2009.
Motion attended Radley College and
University College, Oxford (B.A., 1974;
M.Litt., 1977), where he was a student of
poet John Fuller. From 1976 to 1980 he
taught at the University of Hull and from
1995 at the University of East Anglia in
Norwich. In the interim between these
teaching positions, he was the editor of
Poetry Review (1980–83) and worked in a
variety of editorial capacities for two
London publishing houses.
Motion’s first verse collection, The
Pleasure Steamers, was published in 1978. It
contains “Inland,” which describes the fear
and helplessness of 17th-century villagers
who must abandon their homeland following a
devastating flood; the poem received the
Newdigate Prize in 1975. Noted for his
insight and empathy, Motion frequently wrote
about isolation and loss. Much influenced by
the poets Edward Thomas and Philip
Larkin—whose low-key poetic voices often
caused their work to be overlooked and
undervalued—Motion wrote critical works on
both men, The Poetry of Edward Thomas (1980)
and Philip Larkin (1982), as well as a
biography of Larkin (Philip Larkin: A
Writer’s Life, 1993). He also produced a
biography of poet John Keats (Keats, 1997)
and his biography of the talented Lambert
family, The Lamberts: George, Constant & Kit
(1986), earned him the Somerset Maugham
Award (established by Somerset Maugham to
enable writers under age 35 to travel to
“enrich their writing”) in 1987.
Motion’s later collections of poetry
include Secret Narratives (1983), Dangerous
Play: Poems, 1974–84 (1984), Natural Causes
(1987), Love in a Life (1991), The Price of
Everything (1994), Salt Water (1997), and
Public Property (2002). Among his works of
fiction are The Pale Companion (1989);
Famous for the Creatures (1991); Wainewright
the Poisoner (2000), a “fictional
confession” by 19th-century painter,
essayist, and alleged murderer Thomas
Griffiths Wainewright; and The Invention of
Dr. Cake (2003), a fictional biography of
the obscure poet-doctor William Tabor. In
2006 Motion published a memoir, In the
Blood, and in 2008 he released a collection
of essays titled Ways of Life: On Places,
Painters, and Poets.
As poet laureate, Motion sought to make
poetry accessible to a wider audience. He
especially targeted younger people,
encouraging schools to teach poetry
regularly. He was the first laureate to
serve a fixed, 10-year term; previous
laureates had received a lifetime
appointment. Motion was knighted in 2009.
