67 Quotes by 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.

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.

I think it is interesting to think about the absolute animal relish young people have for rhythm and rhyme.

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.

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

Like a lot of people, for a long time I thought that the road to hell is paved with bad sequels.

The best public poems aren't necessarily those that go at the subject like a bull at a gate.

These places, and the ancient things you know, You won't know soon. I'm working on it now.'

I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry.