23 Andrew Motion Quotes for You to Enjoy

Andrew Motion

English Poet

Born: Oct 26, 1952

Life Me People Poet Time You

Related authors: Alexander Pope Alfred Lord Tennyson John Keats John Milton Percy Bysshe Shelley Robert Browning William Blake William Wordsworth

I've found a different way to scent the air: already it's a by-word for despair. Andrew Motion

Scent Despair Air Way Different Different Way Found

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. Andrew Motion

But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others. Andrew Motion

Poet Others Admire Above Wordsworth

Keats writes better about poems than anybody I've ever read. The things that he says about what he wants his own poems to be are the ideals that I share. Andrew Motion

Better Own Says About Poems Writes Share He Ideals Read His Than Anybody Wants Keats Ever Things

I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable. Andrew Motion

If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful. Andrew Motion

Work Great Me People Three Thinking Vain Settle Would Poems Poets Written Feel Most Well Read Were Handful Expect Die After Might Us Body Whole Lived

I read 'Treasure Island' for the first time at university. And I started to notice then how unresolved some things were. Later, I realised that Stevenson was interested in sequels, and I wondered whether he would have gone back to it had he lived longer. Andrew Motion

Time First Gone Back Later Would Some Some Things Unresolved Had He Longer Stevenson Read First Time Island How Were Wondered Whether Realised Interested Then Notice Sequels Lived Things Treasure Started University

I write between 5.30am and 9.00. That way, I hope I carry over something from my dream time. Andrew Motion

Hope Time Way Carry Dream Something Write Between Over

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both. Andrew Motion

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. Andrew Motion

I get up at 5.30am, sluice myself and have two Weetabix and some mint tea, before starting to write by 6am. Andrew Motion

Myself Before Tea Mint Some Write Up Get Starting Two

I'm ensuring my place in heaven. Andrew Motion

Ensuring Heaven Place

There are plenty of examples of people who have had busy lives out there in the world, trying to do good, and written very well at the same time. Andrew Motion

Time Good People World Busy Plenty Out Examples Had Written Well Very Trying Same Same Time Who Lives

In a general way, I want to be a kind of flag-waver, bunting hanger-up, drum-beater, you name it, for poetry. Andrew Motion

You Way Kind General Poetry Name Want

Pretty much the day I stopped being laureate, the poems that had been few and far between came back to me, like birds in the evening nesting in a tree. Andrew Motion

Day Me Few Tree Birds Back Laureate Pretty Poems Had Between Like Came Been Stopped Being Far Much Evening

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. Andrew Motion

Thanks Way Kind Gigantic Perceived Poems Poetry Poets Football Schools Underground Partly Shift Been Clubs Now Funding Zoo

I like eating out. I like buying beautiful paintings and being surrounded by beautiful things. I have to finance that life. I can barely afford a pension scheme because I don't make enough money. Andrew Motion

Life Beautiful Finance Money Enough Enough Money Out Pension Eating Scheme Beautiful Paintings Like Beautiful Things Make Because Surrounded Afford Being Barely Paintings Things Buying

When Keats says: 'Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses', what he means is that we don't necessarily believe what a poem is saying if it comes out and tells us in an absolutely head-on, in-your-face way; we only believe it to be true if we feel it to be true. Andrew Motion

Saying Be True Believe Pulses Our Philosophy Way Says Out Tells Poem Only Absolutely He Head-On True Feel Until Proved Us Means Keats Necessarily Axiom

Andrew Motion Quotes

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