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July 20, 2003
Author: Laureate and hardy
Andrew Motion was born in 1952. He is the author of eight poetry books and four biographies, including the life of Philip Larkin. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1999. Here he talks about his job
Observer: Do you think the Poet Laureate can write love poetry?
Andrew Motion: The Poet Laureate should be able to write anything.
Obs: Public property — is that how you feel?
AM: I meant two things by the title of my book. One is more personal than the other. The personal thing is to kind of say, look what I’ve done to myself, look what you’ve done to me. But much more importantly, what I meant to do was to alert people to a conversation they might possibly have about what public writing can mean in this day and age.
Obs: Do you like the job?
AM: I’ve begun to like it. I found it bewildering to start with, because lots of very bright lights were shining on me, and that can be very difficult.
Obs: And will you renew the lease?
AM: Well, I don’t suppose I’ll be invited to, because the Palace and the government decided that it would be a 10-year thing. I was very happy to accept it on those terms, partly because I think I don’t want to stand in the way of other people who might do it very well, and partly because I think there’s a great deal to be said for people doing it when they’re not in their dotage.
Obs: Does the Queen like poetry?
AM: She certainly sees its place. Whether she reads much of it or not, I don’t know. I know that she reads at least all the winners of the Queen’s Gold Medal every year, because I go and introduce the winner to her and she has always read them.
Obs: When the Queen Mother died, you were expected to perform.
AM: Well, that was a particularly interesting case in the sense that I knew it was going to happen. I didn’t know when it was going to happen, but I knew that it was going to happen. And for about a year before it happened, every fortnight or so a journalist would ring up about something and say: ‘Have you written your Queen Mum poem yet?’ And I would say: ‘No’ and they’d say: ‘Why not? I mean, it’s going to happen, why don’t you just write it and get it in the fridge?’
And I kept saying to them, which is what I believed, that if I were a journalist I would do exactly that, but a poet must not do that, particularly a poet who insists on writing out of feeling, and ideally out of strong feeling.
What happened was that the day that she died, I had planned to go fishing. I thought I’ll watch some TV before I leave when the screen went blank for a moment, and I thought that can only be it. So I literally went up to my room and I started writing. I wasn’t sure in advance what was wanted.— Dawn/Observer News Service
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