Andrew Motion: Authoring the self

Abstract

This article examines to what extent Andrew Motion has created his own reputation. As a biographer, Motion has re-written reputations and as a poet, he has more or less created a school of poetry he can call his own. The article attends to the poetic strategies he has employed that both conceal and disclose elements from his own life and the limits of these tendencies. In addition, Motion's role as Poet Laureate is examined to discern the positive and negative effects this has had on his reputation; how he negotiated the politics of this position and how this figures in his verse. Finally, The Poetry Archive, the online poetry repository co-founded by Motion, is considered with recourse to his reputation as Laureate and as a poet in his own right.