Andrew Motion
Sir Andrew Motion ( born October 26, 1952 in London) is an English poet, novelist and biographer. From 1999 to 2009 he was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. 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 boarding school at age seven, which was led by a friend of his grandfather. Then he went to Radley, Oxfordshire to school, where he first came into contact with poetry. His mother died early on the consequences of a riding accident.
He studied at Oxford, where he was awarded in 1975 for a poem ( The Tides ) with the Newdigate Prize. Then he became a lecturer in English at University College, Oxford, before he taught from 1976 to 1981 at the University of Hull. During this time, he became deeply with the work of Edward Thomas ' apart and got to know Philip Larkin, whose official biographer he became. After that motion was to 1983 out the Poetry Review and was followed up in 1989 in a managerial capacity at the London publisher Chatto and Windus. He later took Malcolm Bradbury Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
Was Andrew Motion as successor to Ted Hughes Poet Laureate on 1 May 1999. The decision was controversial; Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott or Carol Ann Duffy were traded after Hughes ' death as favorite. Motions tenure was limited to ten years - until now, the court poet was always appointed for life. Later he said he did not know what to expect it with this office, and that he had often felt as heavy burden. Carol Ann Duffy was his successor. In 2009 he was nominated for his services to literature Knight Bachelor.
Poetry Motions deemed to be cautious and thoughtful. He strives for a clear language to make it possible for the reader to penetrate into the depths of poetry. His mother's death led him often to do research in his poems about the meaning of seemingly random events.
Motion is one of the initiators of The Poetry Archive, an online collection of author readings. He was twice married and lives in North London.