Former Poet Laureate to host event at Plymouth College - 11/1/10

Published: 12 January, 2010

Plymouth College is delighted to welcome Sir Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate 1999-2009, to the Meade-King Hall on Thursday 28th January. 

Starting at 5.30 p.m., the evening begins with a reading.  This will be followed by a question and answer session, finishing with book-signing of recent publications such as The Cinder Path, a collection of poems and Ways of Life: on Places, Painters and Poets, a collection of essays. 

Earlier in the day Sir Andrew is hosting three workshops for Plymouth College pupils as part of the school's Creative Arts Week.

The evening event is open to all.  Tickets are £5 and can be purchased from the Plymouth College School Office.  Refreshments are included in the price. Please call 01752 203300 for further information.

Jan'10
6-7        NORTH OF ENGLAND EDUCATION CONFERENCE
28         PLYMOUTH College                                                                                      01752 203300

 Feb'10
24         GODALMING Charterhouse with Watts Gallery                                        01483 810235

 Mar'10
11         LB of ENFIELD Library Re-opening
24         ESSEX Book Festival, Colchester United Reformed Church                 01206 573948

Andrew Motion was born in 1952. He read English at University College, Oxford and subsequently spent two years writing about the poetry of Edward Thomas for an M. Litt. From 1976 to 1980 he taught English at the University of Hull; from 1980 to 1982 he edited the Poetry Review and from 1982 to 1989 he was Editorial Director and Poetry Editor at Chatto & Windus. He is now Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in London. He was knighted for his services to literature in 2009.

Sir Andrew is a council member of the Advertising Standards Authority and, since last July, Chairman of the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council.

Andrew Motion was Poet Laureate from 1999 until 2009.

His new collection of poems is The Cinder Path (Faber) and Ways of Life: Places, Painters and Poets (Faber) is his latest collection of essays.

'It's a book full of pleasures, and shows, as always, a mind turned alluringly outwards, into the world.' Philip Hensher, Daily Telegraph

'These always absorbing essays seek out the things that matter deeply to this most English of poets and holds them up again to the light.' Carol Ann Duffy, Observer

 In The Blood A Memoir of my Childhood (Faber) was published in Sept'06.

 'Andrew Motion's childhood memoir In the Blood is funny and spare and honest and clear. He captures perfectly the anxious yet optimistic incompleteness of being young.' Julie Myerson

  'The great value of a memoir such as this is not only its revelation of someone else's experiences, someone else's consciousness, but the realisation of how much we share. He does write beautifully, of course, but I expected that; what's given me even more pleasure is the amber-like quality of his memory, and the things I found myself recalling in sympathy.'  Philip Pullman

  'Deeply engaging … the innocence and the hardness of childhood are beautifully put together ... it's a strikingly good book, framed by tragedy but full of intense life.' Helen Dunmore

Andrew Motion's work has received the Arvon/Observer Prize, the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize, the De Moffart Art Prize (2006) and the Dylan Thomas Prize. In 1994 his biography of Philip Larkin was awarded the Whitbread Prize for Biography, and shortlisted for the NCR Award. The Lamberts won the Somerset Maugham Award.

'Compelling, simple & mysterious' Sean O'Brien Sunday Times

'His voice is unlike any other' Lavinia Greenlaw  New Statesman & Society

'Motion is a beautiful lyricist unpretentiously and precisely describing those things worth having even as he casts unsettling shadows across them' Robert Potts The Guardian

In addition to making regular visits to schools and Festivals, he has also co-founded The Poetry Archive, a web-based collection of poets reading their work which will have a significant value for general readers as well as teachers and students (it includes a dedicated 'education zone'). www.poetryarchive.org

"The best poems are those which speak to us about the important things in our lives in a way that we never forget. Any heavier definition than that begins to collapse under its own weight and exclude many forms of poetry. But we live in a very diverse culture and the great opportunity that poetry has now is to make sure that all its various voices have an equal and proper space given to them. In this way, they can link up with the lives from which they arose in the first place."

Autobiography
2006                 IN THE BLOOD A Memoir of my Childhood (pub.Sept'06)

Essays
2008                 WAYS OF LIFE: Places, Painters and Poets

Poetry
1991                 LOVE IN A LIFE
1994                 THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING
1997                 SALT WATER
1998                 SELECTED POEMS 1976-1997
2001                 HERE TO ETERNITY an anthology edited by Andrew Motion
2002                PUBLIC PROPERTY
2003                 FIRST WORLD WAR POEMS an anthology selected by Andrew Motion
2009                 THE CINDER PATH

Biography
1993                 PHILIP LARKIN: A WRITER'S LIFE
1995                 THE LAMBERTS (First published in 1986)
1997                 KEATS
2000                 WAINEWRIGHT THE POISONER

Fiction
2003                 THE INVENTION OF DR CAKE